Patterns Number Three

We make the assumption that order is “better” than chaos. At least, that’s the way that we generally try to live our lives. An orderly filing system is “better” than a random pile of stuff, isn’t it? Traffic flowing in an precise and efficient fashion is better than wall-to-wall gridlock, wouldn’t you agree? A skyscraper or stadium is better than a collapsed pile of rubble, right?

In some ways it can be argued that life itself is order from chaos. If the rules running the universe as a whole are simply an incredibly complex set of balanced opposites (light vs dark, hot vs cold, good vs evil) then one of the most fundamental must be entropy vs order.

As time progresses forward, entropy increases and things become more chaotic. Things die, photons disperse, randomness increases, we plod forward toward the heat death of the universe.

Yet other systems work to organize matter and energy on at least a local scale. Stars coalesce from gas clouds, gravity brings matter together into planets, chemicals interact and combine, and pretty soon you’re up to your eyeballs in fauna and flora.

Perhaps that’s why we seek out patterns and rhythms. As living beings, and sentient ones at that, we are near the top of the food chain in the anti-entropy forces in this section of the universe. We seek order as an ally, a kindred force, battling against chaos.

While recognizing, paradoxically, that ultimate order is boring and sterile, so a little bit of randomness is a good thing.