Quote:
Originally posted by The.Lunatic
Everybody has said the same thing, that the universe is chaotic, but everything around us can be represented in numbers, and that these numbers contain patterns. This would imply that fundamentally the universe however chaotic is simplistic, and organized. Just so happens however that these fundamentals allow for every and all possiblities, therefore there is not predicition when everything can and will happen. ( quantum theory )
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you miss the point of chaos entirely.
You can take an incredibly simple
deterministic system, which when set in motion will create
chaotic and
unpredictable results.
What’s that? A contradiction in terms? Determinism resulting in unpredictability? Surely not!?
Well it's true, due to the butterfly effect. This concept of a butterfly flapping it's wings in Tokyo and causing a hurricane in California is one of the most hideously misunderstood concepts, but it essentially boils down to this:
In a non-linear system any predictions which are not based on
perfect knowledge of the system’s initial state very rapidly become meaningless after a length of time.
So in order to make any kind of predictions about a non-linear system, we need to know it's initial state
perfectly.
Well, surely very difficult in practice, you might say, but there is nothing stopping us from knowing this in principle (sidestepping Heisenberg for the moment...assume we have magical powers to "see" a system's state without affecting it. ).
Well, it is actually impossible, even in principle, to know the exact state of a system
Think of the simple case of defining exactly the position of a particle. Place it on a Cartesian grid, and write down it's co-ordinates. How many decimal places will you require? To define it's position
perfectly, you will need an infinite amount of decimal places!
So any attempt at prediction is limited by our finite knowledge of the system. Deterministic processes can be entirely unpredictable!
So yes, I would hold the view that the universe runs from relatively simple rules. The ultimate goal of physics is to try and understand this set of rules (whether or not it is a realistic goal is irrelevant). But the "simplicity" of the laws does not imply the simplicity of outcome.
I take it from the way you phrased your post, you are referring to the movie pi? I have to say I loved that movie, and I love Darren Arronofsky as a director, but it is vitally important to realise that pi is a
fictional story, and the mathematics used in it are
not consistent with reality. There are plenty of incorrect mathematical statements made in that film...not that I believe that this should be held against that film. The non-existence of Troll's doesn't take away from the brilliance of The Lord Of The Rings!