Chaos theory

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Chaos theory

Postby Vallikat » Fri Apr 15, 2005 12:16 pm

On Monday, Tarryk made a post to his journal about his crappy Monday. This was preceeded by posts about his crappy weekend. During which he says:

By all theories of chaos, things HAVE to get better after today. Next journal entry will be a positive one.

and
What the hell was I thinking, jinxing myself like that? "Things can only get better"?!?!?! That's practically a CUE for things to get worse!


Well I had a theory that I wanted to share with him on that. So I sent him this PM. But last night he tells me that this doesn't really belong in a PM. It belongs out here for ya'll to pick apart (ok, "pick apart" came from me, but I figure that's what's going to happen :) ). So anyway, this is the response I sent him, for your discussion:


I'll tell you what you were thinking and why you were jinxed. You weren't looking at all theories of chaos. You were looking at those which would bump chaos against Newton's cradle and get an opposite reaction. That's not the way to look at it. A better foil for chaos is usually Occam's Razor. The simple is the perfect balance to the complex.

In the scheme of things one bad occurance usually breeds another. One error usually breeds a second. Chaos theory says that a seemingly random occurance can have an effect on the outcome which more or less dictates the next occurance in the chain and so on. Sometimes a branch in the chain which started off crappy can bump against a positive factor and its path can turn out good. But the greater likelyhood, the simpler solution, is that it's going to either keep going from bad to worse, or keep going without intensifying. Either way it remains crappy.

The closer you are to the onset of the crap, the less likely it is to hit a good path.

Now, of course, the good part of all this is that the larger the web becomes the more factors which can have a positive influence on the outcome come into play and things can, ultimately, turn around.

*bows*
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Chaos, Theory, Random, Generator, Influenced, Modified

Postby Gridfan » Sun Apr 17, 2005 4:57 pm

Interesting thoughts! But you are right!

Chaos if un-influenced will always have a 50/50 balance.
i.e. 50% chance of being A or B,
50% chance of being 1 or 2.
50% chance of being 1 or 2889999455.
50% chance of being 2 or 123ikkyikkyniboomnini345.
Either something is or isn't, and half the time a chance of being both at once,
or simply not existing at all.

That is how chaos work, chaos theory is trying to find a pattern to chaos (like your post above :)
I don't see a pattern in chaos (unless you see a 50/50 chance of anything happening or not happening a pattern that is.)
so I can't really call my view on it a chaos theory but...*shrug* but per my own theory I guess there is a 50% chance it is a chaos theory "this" post,
there is also a 50% chance "this" post is a slice of cheese....
(mmmm. I like cheese...)

Anyway, chaos itself has a randomness to it.
If anyone has ever seen a random number generator,
and I mean a REAL one,
that number sequences can be 111000100011111100000000011110101
Does that sequence seem random? No! you might think,
as you got a series of 1's and 0's after each other,
but that IS the beauty of chaos or true randomness,
even chaos has patterns, the beauty is that you never know what pattern,
nor when the pattern occurs.

Pseudo-Random generators that pretend they are real random generators
fail to produce random or chaotic numbers,
why? because they attempt to avoid sequential numbers,
which is sad as that makes it influenced chaos, or synthetic noise if you will.
(real noise are most of the time patterns actually, just ask astronomers or sound engineers)
The reason why "real" random generators are so cool,
is that you never know what the heck is gonna come next,
it may be what you got just a second ago,
or it could be something you never had,
or it could be nothing at all (that one not exactly applicable to computing, but life on the other hand it is)

So take Vallikat's advice, let chaos do what it does best, namely being unpredictable.
Once you try to push chaos in a certain direction it still remain chaos
but it is now modified chaos,
thus you could end up with a bunch of negative chaos
instead of positive chaos,
because remember, what direction chaos goes is always 50/50 because.... well it's chaos. :lol:

I prefer to call REAL random generators for Chaos Generators,
Gridbot "has" a Chaos Generator, it is used to pick contest winners...
Think about that the next time you win a contest. :twisted:
Incidentally the same Chaos Generator is used to randomly pick
a quote (or pink as it's called in GSP) of what we have said in guild chat
and show in our guild chat,
and trust me the name Chaos Generator is justified indeed :roll:
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Postby Vallikat » Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:25 pm

Wow, Gridfan says I'm right.

I don't think I've ever felt more validated in my life. :)

Which I suppose is better than being violated.

But I suppose that depends on who is doing it. :) :P
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Postby Jugsmalone » Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:48 pm

*frowns* well it all sounds too scientific to me for me thier are good days and bad days and I just hope when im haveing a bad day that tomorow will be much better I dont care about numbers and I try to not let the bad days get me down too much.....I useually look for the good in a bad situation and never look for what can be or should be ... just a view from someone that loves fun loves life and sees good in every situation..... huggles all
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