Order and chaos

1049: 

In many ways, we are living in a disordered world.  If I want to bring order to the chaos perhaps I’ll ask myself how to do that constructively.  It would be a bit like pulling out weeds to make room for a new tree; when chaos is brought to order the tree finds space to grow.  In the human context, the greater good and minimising destruction seem sensible in the same way, but there’s also an energy consideration here.  Order comes at a cost.  And if that ordering involves my being altruistic, that’s very constructive but not if there’s insufficient energy to sustain it.

‘Order’ doesn’t necessarily solve anything on its own, because a little chaos is needed too.  It’s the same when you compare a well behaved child with a rebellious child.

Where altruism is most useful is when things are badly out of kilter, calling for remedy.  If we let weeds grow the trees will die.  If we let unsustainable systems continue the way they are, the system will die.  Even on the mildest interpersonal level, when simply smiling at someone or making eye-contact, that too brings order to the chaos (of being separate from each other).  We can’t grow when we are solitary or competitive beings.  In the bigger picture, order and chaos is a question that needs to be considered in terms of rescuing human nature itself – the chaos here is that we are each copying one another’s destructive behaviours.

In theory if humans have the ability to restructure physical systems then we can restructure our own nature.  And following on from there, we can then consider the possibility that humans can re-balance the Earth, the ultimate in bring order to chaos.