REVISTA DE GASTROENTEROLOGÍA
The history and future of Chaos *
*Capítulos
del libro “CHAOS 2000 from Cos to Cosmos: making a new medicine for a new millenium”.
Toronto: Vashna publications; 1996 (Reimpresión 2000).
Vivian S.Rambihar,M.D.Cardiologist,McMaster University,Hamilton, Canada.
Chaos is not
new. It is as old as the mountains
and the
streams. It features in the creation myths
of many cultures as the origin of everything. Chaos has waxed and waned over history and prehistory, enshrined in the
religion, culture and phlosophy of various
civilizations. lt is now emerging again, this
time as a
science, sparked by the computer revolution of the late 1900
´s, applicable to the physical, biological and social
sciences, becoming the science of everything, and of the future.
Chaos is an abstract cosmic principle,referring to
the source of all
creation, according to Ralph Abraham in Chaos Gaia
Eros. Chaos is a void, out of which everything arose in Greek
mythology, recorded in the
Theogony by
esiod, one of the early Greek poets. Out of Chizaos arose
Gaia, the created universe, and Eros,
the creative impulse.
This same
trinity, according to Abraham,preceded
the creation of the gods and goddesses of the usual
pantheon of early Greek paganism (also called Orphism),
is also associated with three revolutionary
movements in the sciences now, sharing a similar, mathematical basis.
He described
the
Chaos revolution named in 1975
by
Jim York and T.Y. Li,for mathematics for intrinsically
irregular processes. The
Gaia Hypothesis, named in
1973,
proposes a self-regulatory capability of the
complex system of earth, ocean, atmosphere, and the living ecosystems of our
planet. The earth is viewed
as a living system, with the biosphere creating and
maintaining favorable conditions for life.
Erodynamics,
named in
1989, he says, applies dynamical systems theory
(chaos) to human social phenomena.
These three principles converge now at the end of
this second millennium AD, to herald the beginning
of a new era, a Chaos Epoch. Abraham contends that history and prehistory over the past 25,000 years falls
naturally into three phases, or epochs, associated with the Orphic
trinity: Chaos, Gaia and Eros.He describes
a metahistory of these three phases punctuated by revivals of
chaos; a static or Gaia phase, 10,000 - 4,000
BC, a Periodic or Eros phase, 4,000 BC -1962 AD, and a chaotic
phase, after 1962.
The names static,periodic and chaotic used to
describe these epochs, represent also a development in
mathematics, Chaos Theory -or a more advanced form- Complexity theory. The point or static attractor
developed in 1665 from Newton to describe nearby points dynamicaily
attracted, leading to ordinary
differential equations. In 1850, the term periodic attractor came into general use to describe
oscillation.
The term chaotic attractor described by Poincaré in 1899,
came into more general use in the 1960's.
The Chaotic Age began with the computer
generation of its principles, by Yoshisuke Ueda in 1961,
and Edward Lorenz in 1963. It has now emerged widespread with applications to almost everything.
The concept of chaos developed over the ages
not only in creation myths, but in various revivals.
Abraham suggests some of these revivals in ancient times,
associated with Opheus (1,200 BC), Pythagoras (600
BC), Buddha (500 BC), Heraclitus (500 BC), Christ (AD
37), and Hypathia (AD 415).
Abraham suggests further that the suppressed
system of chaos, creativity and partnership perennially
seek to reemerge into the collective conscious, and into the mainstream of world culture.
There is now a wave of increasing application of
chaos or complexity theory, or dynamical systems
theory to the sciences, the physical, biological and the social sciences.
History can now be seen as
dynamic, punctuated
chaotically by bifurcations or sudden shifts. Climate
is seen as chaotic in fractals of time and space, with the Ice Ages postulated as demonstrating chaotic
periodicity.
The development of the
world, its culture and
its diversity is seen as emergent -self organizing
and dynamical. Evolution is now being considered as both spontaneous order and natural selection.
Even the potential of the human mind to think and contemplate,
and the existence of consciousness. are
being viewed as possibly related to chaos.
The chaos revolution has
arrived. The chaos revival
is here and the Chaos Epoch has dawned.
It is only by understanding our past that we can prepare for the
future. How well we handle the future
depends on the models we use for the past. It seems
that we are attracted to a future of chaos.
With
this, chaos will come an appreciation of the
rich, vibrant, diverse, uncertain splendor of nature.
It will reawaken awe and respect in the mysteries of the universe.Stuart Kauffman in his book At
Home in
the
Universe, The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity,
writes of a meeting with
Scott Momaday,
a Pulitzer Prize winning Native American author, seeking to identify the fundamental issues facing
humanity. Momaday says, "We must reinvent the sacred in the modern world".
Kauffman responds,
"I hold the hope that what some are calling the new
sciences of complexity may help us find a new place
in the universe, that through this new science, we may
recover our sense of worth, our sense af the sacred".
