Similarly, to limit the gene pool in a clan weakens the population instead of gaining strength from allowing a stranger to walk in -- with his or her opposing beliefs, odd ways and appearance -- and provide genetic diversity whether by marriage or taboo sex.
Although "advanced" societies are exalted and called complex, they have done well at assuring their demise (as in Jared Diamond's book Collapse) by being simplistically goal-oriented and expansionist.
Economic growth and Western Civilization are wondrous and have been unprecedented, but they are divorced from nature and reality; they are about to enter inevitable, aggravated chaos. This chaos will have clear reasons and not so clear outcomes, although we can glimpse them if we free our minds from many of the dominant culture's cherished beliefs. The answers are not in a mathematical analysis of all the data we can amass, in search of limited order. [An academic description of chaos theory is at the end of this essay. - editor]
In "Doom and gloom? Your perception calls the tune" Culture Change (Letter #74) looked at our individual and cultural ability to shape events, in keeping with physics' dazzling findings on the role of the observer. However, that essay did not address the ongoing dance of the cosmos that we participate in, in terms of letting chaos and harmony work their way as freely as possible for as long as our journey endures. Turns out this is not just some spiritualist's dream, but the way things must work for a sustainable future.
Modern humanity's
behavior has been marked by the constant attempt to "order the
universe." Date this back to the abandonment of hunting and
gathering in favor of harder work to support surpluses for the
elite. If ordering the universe is the wrong approach, then we
should be promoting chaos -- this is another way of saying that we
should work with nature instead of against her.
Chaos,
however, is considered a bad thing: "chaotic behavior" and "descending
into chaos" are to be avoided at all cost. Too bad that chaos is
actually a law of the universe! Another concept that has been given a bad name and associated with chaos in a negative way is anarchy. Anarchy means "without rulers," but is
demonized (especially by rulers) in describing any public violence or "confusion." Tell
that to any peaceful anarchists maintaining successful collectives based on solidarity, self-reliance and mutual aid. When one
thinks of our time as a species without and then with government, it is
that much longer time without it when there were no major wars or other
great "mistakes," nor were there conditions such as today's gross
inequality perpetuated for greed.
So
it seems we must figure out what we want in accordance with what's
possible to sustain ourselves as one people sharing the Earth will all
life. We have been finding, with the negative consequences of
abusing nature, that we need to adhere to what nature wants.
Nature doesn't really "want" more Katrinas, but that's our future
because we had to try to direct chaos for selfish gain. People
who want to generate profits and cut themselves off from nature with
technology and possessions are the interests who fight what nature
normally gives us.
Nature wants its own chaos,
while "well ordered" equally describes our natural world. Its
complexity as a living system is not simplistic enough for linear
thinkers and planners. But physicists have found that chaos is
intrinsic to everything as an unseen, underlying order that can never
be explained except to allow for the essential mystery of molecular
interplay, whether in an amoeba or a star.
In our wise subconscious chaos reigns
In our lives, the sharp contrast is between (1) the ordered approach to living and thinking, and (2) the subconscious.
Those
of us in the “rat race” know well what the ordered approach is about:
follow orders. We imagine, however, that we have more autonomy
and mobility than we really have: our culture has trained us to revere
the benefits of technological progress and economic growth. So,
we figure that any constraints on our freedom (if we noticed) are a
fair trade-off, even when we drive species extinct without
understanding their connection to us and everything else.
The
way we have defined and built our world prevents us from imagining or attempting
a way of life that is not regimented, bureaucratic, and
anti-nature. So, in our mentally ordered state that is expected
to last 24 hours a day, a larger power -- be it nature's chaos, or
love, or pursuing art -- is denied. This is the same as cutting
spirituality out of our lives. And the structures and objects we have physically built literally box us in, causing health problems as well.
The
scientific establishment and its main beneficiaries – industry and
government – assume they know everything, or they act as if they
do. But looking at the disaster caused by nations and ruthless
commerce, it is obvious they don’t know what is best to do. It's
more and more obvious that they don't care. Wars over resources
such as in Iraq, and global warming that gives us super-charged
hurricanes, teach us that our rulers are mistaken at best.
It's
not as if "the wrong people are in charge," when in reality we need to
take responsibility individually so as to not be followers.
Everyone has a unique intelligence and set of talents to offer for the
common good, but today the drone and mercenary are most commonly
rewarded. Entrepreneurs are rewarded, but they tend to suck
others' limited energy and wealth. Somehow a dominant culture of
exploitation has taken over almost the whole world during the last ten
millennia, even though this clearly meant that people had to do more
work and submit to more danger and suffering. Tribal, nomadic or
hunter-gatherer cultures fared well for countless more millennia as
they flourished in tremendous diversity.
It
is the non-dominant cultures, mostly residing in the past and the dust,
that worked with nature as an uncontrolled, chaotic force that over
time offered reliability and security. These cultures have been
conquered, destroyed, ridiculed, abandoned, and yet vindicated.
After all, our days may be numbered. Or maybe you believe that
the palm pilot and fruit shipped from other continents are but a couple
of signs of our unending genius and infallibility.
Today's
fashionable buzzword of "sustainability" actually addresses the
suppressed alternative of the more spiritual, nature-based,
non-repressed way of life. Unfortunately, most commentators on
sustainability want the impossible: a continuation of the consumer
economy and our social structures, albeit reformed to be kinder and
gentler. At any symposium on sustainability, it is rare for the
traditional native American tribes to be referenced as a model.
Today’s adherents of sustainability need to be examined for their
realism and sincerity as well as their funding sources, to see if they
are fighting nature or would work with her.
Dream time
In
dreams we experience an appalling lack of order. They are
unpredictable, sometimes shocking, and provide experiences ranging from
love, pleasure, sadness or fear. Some ancient cultures held the
dream world to be every bit as real and significant as the waking
world. For our purposes herein, we can just view for the moment
our dreams as a book or movie about our subconscious, real feelings and
their possibilities: chaos, but with the precise depth to make us
identify intensely with the people and situations we experience in the
dreams.
When we sleep, our bodies and
minds are vulnerable and unordered by our modern society. What we
can learn from this is to contrast dreaming with the ongoing attempt to
suppress anything unplanned or non-utilitarian. When we see the
contrast, we see that there is another force than U.S. policy, for
example, or what we were taught in school.
We
may not all agree that there is wisdom in acknowledging and embracing
nature as chaos. But at least we can realize there is more to the
world than our trained perception. This opens up the possibility
of questioning certain foundations of Western Civilization such as
totalitarian agriculture, division of labor, social stratification for
the benefit of hierarchies, and imperialism.
Nature
as chaos, underneath and surrounding our controlled exteriors, lies
in wait as the short lived highways and dams run their brief course.
Yet, nature as chaos is everything else too, including most
music.
Music out of chaos
Music can be a controlled
process, and therefore limited. Or, it is full of surprises that
somehow follow a design. Creation out of chaos is what happens,
and that process is also where we came from as living beings. There is no
end to a "piece of music" necessarily, although we can call some music
or poetry complete. (We may limit these creations to what can get onto
electronic media or one side of a piece of paper.) Harmonic
vibrations and new directions for a "piece of music" are what pop into
the mind or jump off a keyboard or fretboard. If we didn't have
to wake up or go to work they could go on forever.
Although
it is said there is nothing new under the sun, new music is as
irresistible a force as the unavoidable uniqueness of every new face
born. A child can make up a song with his or her own words
spontaneously because this impulse has not yet been sealed off and restricted for
specialists.
A musical composition may
usually be in a certain key, maintaining harmonic and mathematical
relationships, and provide what’s called a resolution or handy
ending. But in a dream state, the same piece of music is that and
more: suddenly the mere beginning of a long, out of control "work" – a
chain that can go anywhere, including "lyrics, acting and costumes" and
even side-shows. The possible combinations and permutations of
notes, beats and tempos – with various instruments and voices – are
infinite.
When I was very young I
worried that "they" would suddenly run out of songs. I loved my favorite
tunes and tried to possess them with a purchase or latching onto a
favorite radio hit. Possibly because of my obsession with songs,
music grabbed control of much of my life starting at the age of 22,
especially while sleeping or opening up to my subconscious. The
never-ending chaos of my musical dreaming is my own just
punishment. Even though the music can be pleasant, original and
intensely powerful to me, I often experience it as a nuisance because I
don’t just let it go. I view it as if a commodity as I try to
stop and remember it and capture it. Instead of a tidy package,
the music does not know to quit unless I limit it in accordance with
the ordered, artificial world we have erected. What’s desirable
is when I get at most three dreams in one night or morning, and
fortunately they are almost always in the same key. Getting back
to sleep after having to wake up and use the muse is often a
problem. But my visions and sounds fill me with meaning and
accomplishment, particularly if I can mimic them with my guitar and
additional words and music to complete the dreams into a performable
song.
Oddly, lyrics from dreams
can make more sense in terms of unity than lyrics made up from a
conscious state. For example, the mood in a dream about loving
someone will retain the feeling with the words, but when composing
lines when awake it is possible to err by inadvertently altering a mood or shuffling
the position of characters, and this confuses or loses the whole
message of the song. So, what has a better natural order, our
chaotic subconscious or our ego-engaged intellects?
Conclusion
My musical chaos has shown me that the order of the universe is beyond
our ability to constrain it. So it’s best to just let it all flow
and enjoy it. If we insist on building on flood plains, create
tall buildings, engineering life forms, nature eventually will remind
us what makes sense, through an historic earthquake or 100-year
flood. Not to mention boring formula-songs.
In
a time of unprecedented mushrooming of human population, we have
overloaded our boat such that the water surrounds us right up to the top of the
gunwales. Further social control is not a long-term solution all
by itself. Acknowledging the universe's chaos and following
natural possibilities for living sustainably are essential to our
survival and freedom.
Leaving the Garden of Eden
is still going on today. The idea of losing a beautiful,
nurturing haven is the same concept as destroying nature that we all
depend on. Eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge
can easily refer to the wrongful emphasis on information and technology
rather than trusting nature and leading simple lives.
* * * * *
Chaos (from a Princeton University online dictionary): Chaos theory
Do you demand more order in your chaos philosophy? Try chaordism:
According
to Greg Rae's website, patterns from chaos emerge in mathematicians'
research, so chaos theory is really about finding the underlying order
in apparently random data. He says “chaos was first discovered”
when the first true experimenter in chaos, a meteorologist, named
Edward Lorenz, made discoveries in 1960 onward.
But another origin is found in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia:
In
mathematics and physics, chaos theory deals with the behavior of
certain nonlinear dynamic systems that under certain conditions exhibit
a phenomenon known as chaos, which is characterised by a sensitivity to
initial conditions (see butterfly effect). As a result of this
sensitivity, the behavior of systems that exhibit chaos appears to be
random, even though the model of the system is deterministic in the
sense that it is well defined and contains no random parameters.
Examples of such systems include the atmosphere, the solar system,
plate tectonics, turbulent fluids, economies, and population growth.
Systems
that exhibit mathematical chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in
some sense; this technical use of the word chaos is at odds with common
parlance, which suggests complete disorder.
Last word
The
last statement above is where lay people are wrong: complete disorder
(other than limited instances such as a train wreck) actually has a
pattern and "purpose." But where scientists are wrong is to try
to find the mathematical predictability of a system too huge and
complex to fully view or anticipate, whether it’s the universe or
anyone’s mind. The direction of a song is by no means predictable
when the subconscious is allowed to be on the loose. The pattern
of the music may not fit into a computer, as was done with some Bach
music to simulate more variations. He is considered to be one of
the more mathematical composers. - JL
* * * *
Announcements:
Peak oil discussion broadcast: Jan Lumdberg was interviewed from Boulder, Colorado on community radio with Ron Swenson, solar power proponent, and Reg Greenslade, an oil industry exploration executive.
Further reading:
Culture Change e-Letter #74
n
1: a state of extreme confusion and disorder [syn: pandemonium, bedlam,
topsy-turvydom, topsy-turvyness] 2: the formless and disordered state
of matter before the creation of the cosmos 3: (Greek mythology) the
most ancient of gods; the personification of the infinity of space
preceding creation of the universe [syn: Chaos] 4: (physics) a
dynamical system that is extremely sensitive to its initial conditions.
The
flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in
the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere
actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's
time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't
happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does. (Ian Stewart)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaordic: "The portmanteau chaordic is used in some philosophies to refer to a system that is simultaneously chaotic and ordered. The term was coined by Dee Hock. The combination of chaos and order is typically described as a harmonious coexistence displaying characteristics of both, with neither chaotic nor ordered behavior dominating. Some people hold that nature is largely organized in such a manner; in particular, living organisms and the evolutionary process by which they arose are often described by adherents to such a philosophy as chaordic in nature."
...the
roots of chaos theory date back to about 1900, in the studies of Henri
Poincaré on the problem of the motion of three objects in mutual
gravitational attraction, the so-called three-body problem.
Poincaré found that there can be orbits which are nonperiodic, and yet
not forever increasing nor approaching a fixed point.
In Los Angeles - PEAK OIL: REALITIES & SOLUTIONS of the Looming Petroleum Shortage -- an evening with
Jan Lundberg, Ed Begley Jr., Paul Koretz
Sat. Jan 28, 6:30 pm at Valley Cities Jewish Community Center
Suggested donation: $5.
13614 Burbank Blvd. (betw. Fulton & Coldwater), Sherman Oaks
"The Power of Community; How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" will be screened.
Further info: telephone 1-818-906-7757 or email
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The show can be heard around the world on KGNU.org at the website's archive. It took place January 5, 2005.
Telephone 1-(949) 645-5163 or email
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http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-doomgloom.html
Doom and gloom? Your perception calls the tune - Interconnectedness of all in the universe
http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
Author James Gleick, Chaos - Making a New Science
Author Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos, pg. 141
Truthout.org syndicated Jan Lundberg's article, "Reflections on my Amtrak peak oil tour" at
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/122905EA.shtml
