The Nature of Chaos

Unless we understand the nature of Entropy, we can not resolve the deleterious effects that make it difficult to achieve desired results. Therefore a sound knowledge of the Second Law is extremely important to our quest for happiness.
-https://www.rationality.net/entropy.htm


I am so glad to be reintroduced to the second natural law of thermodynamics: Entropy.  Why?  Well it helps to validate the state of my surroundings and my life situation right now as, at the very least, being a natural phenomenon. :)  I am following the natural law of order allowing things to just be as nature would have them. lol

What is Entropy? 

Entropy is the law that loosely and by no means scientifically states the universe has a tendency to move from a state of order to disorder...the universe has a tendency to move toward chaos.  Of course...chemists, physicists and mathematicians will argue until the cows come home  on the 'actual scientific meaning and limitation 'of the term when it comes to thermodynamics. (http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm). 

I am not even going to go there.  I couldn't if I wanted to. :) I just like to think  that things follow a natural flow from high energy order that becomes dispersed in a random fashion to low energy disorder.  It is natural for life to be a bit messy and it takes great energy and resistance against a natural momentum to keep order.

A simple Lay person's Example

Housework is a great example of my version of the law (and my understanding  is limited).  We build a big beautiful new home...all its structures are neat and in order.  It's natural progression, however, is to go from this order to a state of disintegration and 'mess'.  If I don't pick up after myself or let the dust pile up...nature will take over...piles will build up, dust will build up.  If I don't clean away the food particles left from meals the biological world will eventually step in and do what it is inclined to ( bugs and germs will multiply in chaotic fashion).  We will have what we would consider a messy, dirty home. It is, in our interpretation, chaotic.

Natural

Yet it is natural...requiring the least amount of energy expenditure from us.  It requires no time or effort on our part to let things fall to pieces, does it?  We just 'let go' and do not resist  this natural progression.  We could resist it, at least to some extent, as many of us do, by putting energy into tidying up and cleaning. By fixing things that get broken. 

Resistance

It takes time and energy to resist disorder...and basically that is all we are doing...putting energy into resisting.  We are also just redistributing.  We take the pile of papers off the coffee table and put it in the junk draw...we just moved it.  We call it creating order in our homes...but we aren't doing that...we are not 'creating' anything ...we are just resisting and redistributing a natural phenomenon from taking over as nature intends.

Is it chaos? 

What we, lay people,  loosely term chaos is what the scientific world calls 'randomization'. Randomization increases as energy release decreases. Things that were once orderly in their appearance begin to happen at random.  They become unpredictable and more challenging to control or 'fix' because of this unpredictability. I am told that if I don't stay on top of things in my home and continue to let nature do what nature does, it will eventually reach a point where I won't be able to do anything to make it better.  The disintegration will be irreparable.

We see the messy house as chaos...We place a subjective interpretation on it...but in the natural world is it chaos?  No...it is a perfect pattern of existence, of death, of growth of dispersion of energy...of Life. what we as humans see as random...is actually a result of a universal plan we have yet to understand. Maybe it isn't 'natural' to fight nature and have an orderly home.  (Thank God!  lol.  I am doing something right these days!)

No I am not saying,  let your house fall apart.  I am not saying don't do anything or put any effort into getting what you want. I don't like the state of my surroundings right now...natural or not. I want a little order...I just want to expend the least amount of energy (what I have to offer) and not get caught up in time pressure. 

We just need to be okay with 'random', and be free, maybe, of the need to predict and control before we can accept. That's all. We need to stop expending so much effort and time into doing and allow things to simply 'be' as they are, every now and again.  I guess what I am saying, is that we need a balance between doing and being.

Of course, I am oversimplifying some challenging to understand universal laws...but I guess what I am trying to say...is that it is okay to just let things Be from time to time.  As human 'doings' we have a tendency to resist, reorder, predict the future and to  control nature and Life...we put great energy into doing that.  We get caught up on this notion of 'Time' and become so focused on the time it takes to work against this law. We just don't allow Life to do what Life does. 

We also tend to  see chaos when Life sees order and a natural progression of things. If circumstances are not going our way...if we go from a state of orderly life situation to one that is full of messy situations...we say 'Life is chaotic'. What is random and chaotic for us, however, may not be random and chaotic for Life.  Maybe, according to Life, it all may  simply be going as planned?

Hmm!  This natural law of entropy may give us a little something to think about.

All is well in my world.

References

http://entropysimple.oxy.edu/content.htm

http://see.library.utoronto.ca/SEED/Vol2-3/2-3%20resolved/Salthe.htm

https://www.rationality.net/entropy.htm