I was doing some chaos theory thinking today on my drive to school this morning. Driving down Southfield fwy, it seemed as though everyone was moving in accordance with another. People were signaling and changing lanes just as those had already switched, leaving room for them. It became almost a symphony of highway driving, which is strange since I have a bad case of road rage, and usually my drive to school is filled with turbulent, precarious drivers cutting me off every chance they got. But this morning, I felt at peace as everyone around me was somehow aware of the greater force moving us in our direction. Of course, this could also be that I was half asleep and had just woken up a few minutes beforehand thanks to my exhausted brain.
Regardless, this unusual highway behavior got me thinking about the greater and broader questions of our universe and generation, which of course, is always a good thing to be doing while driving at 8 a.m. So I was contemplating the greater complexities of the world when the chaos theory popped in my head. I thought as though this highway was as good a metaphor as any to compare and relate the universe's chaos in my feeble little mind. First off, I would like to say that I have not solved any great dilemma of our time, and I do not claim to have any knowledge of the following topics, and/or anything for that matter. I am but a simple person working things out in her brain to the best of her abilities, just as anyone else.
So, this highway full of cars does not necessarily represent chaos, since we have laws and rational minds behind the drivers. We are all going one way and at appropriate speeds (and of course all very wary of police since they hide out along the overpasses.) And the thing that makes it most unlike chaos is that we all have a place to go. We have reason in our heads and this is telling us where we need to be. Now I pictured a place with no street lights or lanes and imagined what the traffic would be like then. Without a doubt, people would ultimately figure out a way to direct themselves. Why? Because there is order in the universe. Well, some believe that anyway. People love order, almost crave it, and I'm sure you've seen those people who have a mental breakdown when things are out of place. I, fortunately, am not one of those people and embrace the ambiguity and disarray this world has to offer. However, I was thoroughly intrigued when I looked up the word pandemonium and as it came with definitions wild uproar and disorder, the 4th definition was simply HELL. Now, in Milton's Paradise Lost, Pandemonium is the capital of Hell. So apparently, chaos=disorder=anarchy=evil=Hell. And for some reason I was struck by the fact that everything must have its place and command, otherwise it's labeled as evil. But if you think about it, we find beauty in the chaotic behaviors (or what appear to be), such as modern art.
So then, back to the traffic metaphor, and where I was really going with all of this. So these crazy people who drive all over the place in a lawless atmosphere, they would ultimately find a system of harmony because they knew where they had to get to. Now I would like to dive a little deeper, get your scuba gear!, into a subatomic level. We, and everything really, is made up of cells, and inside these cells are the particles that make up the cell, which make up every entity this world has to offer. Now these tiny subatomic particles, the activities of neurons and such, all act in accordance with each other to form their main cell and these cells all work together to form the big thing, be it people, plants, this laptop, what have you. So, and I am no physicist, does this reflect the idea that everything has it's own order, and nothing really persists through time in chaos? Does everything in nature move because it knows where it has to go? Even the tiny little air molecules that vibrate and seem to "bounce" off each other in space, do they move in a chaotic pattern, or can someone with an extremely powerful computer calculate where and why its moving?
And for that matter, our brains are simply made up of these subatomic particles. Therefore, are our brains subject to the motion of these atoms? Do we have any control over how, why, or when they move? And yes, here's the big question: are we subject to fate, and this underlying, religious, system of movement only visible to the power itself? And in fact, could someone make this system tangible and therefore control it? (I am slowly drifting to places even I didn't venture to cognitively on my simple drive to school this morning.) And if this were true, that there is some underlying meaning and driving force to our nature, then does that mean that free will is no longer even a concept, as our brains are just particles firing electrical circuits, which eventually boil down to tiny little particles, with or without order.
And if one day, there is solid evidence that everything has its own scientific calculations in its motions, and free will is ruled out, fate would be the driving force of nature, and can you really imagine going against that? We were given reason, but were we given choice? Or just an illusion of choice?
Hmm...
Well, I am going to make a decision which appears to be my own, and go have some tacos.
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