Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

- Tilted Philosophy (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-philosophy/)

- - Dynamic Balance (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-philosophy/75350-dynamic-balance.html)

A yin and yang would have both covered, if a bit cliche. Otherwise, going with the arrow theme, why not just one arrow, pointing in one direction?

how about an arrow going in a circle, yet the arrow is made up of several smaller arrows of different sizes and shapes?

this is philosophy how?

Firstly, you've chosen as a symbol for chaos, something from a roleplaying game(at least that's the only place I've seen that symbol) now while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, you might want to look into the whole thing more deeply.

Now, there is something called the Lorenz Attractor, which is a famous example of something approaching the boundaries of chaos, it looks a bit like this, or this - Now the Lorenz attractor bears a remarkable resemblance (if you look in the right way) to a butterfly.

The butterfly has a close connection with the idea of chaos through the now famous quotation of Lorenz who said "Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?" and which has now become more generally known as The Butterfly Effect.

So I'd go down these lines for chaos - though this kind of chaos might not be the sort you are thinking of. This is a creative, natural chaos, not an apeshit mental trash everything raging chaos, but since you explain what you are thinking of in the way you do, I don't imagine that's what you mean either.

Now for order, yes it is a more tricky one - perhaps something mechanical, deterministic, a clockface, or clockwork of some kind. Another tack might be to take an Image from Blake's 'Newton' which depicts Newton, believed by many to be the father of rational and deterministic science measuring the universe with his pair of compasses. Just the compasses might do the job, though I guess they represent more Man's attempt at establishing order, rather than order itself.
Maybe something purely geometrical, a circle in a square, or perhaps the spiral constructed using The Golden Ratio, or Phi (explained here) as well as discussed in this forum here. Either the simple spiral, or you could try one of those conical sea-shells.

Anyway, whatever you choose, I'd think *very* carefully before going ahead with the tattoo, and make sure I'd researched thoroughly into what I was going to have done before doing it.

how about the ouroboros?

Although I suppose that's more of a cyclical thing than an order/chaos thing.

"This symbolises the cyclic Nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death. The ouroboros eats its own tail to sustain its life, in an eternal cycle of renewal."
http://www.dragon.org/chris/ouroboros.html
<br>

http://www.dragon.org/chris/gifs/ouroboros.gif

The eight-pointed star was created by Michael Moorcock, in this article he describes both the symbol for chaos and the symbol for its opposite, Law.

Quote:

"I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) N.S.E.W.and then added another four directions and that was that -- eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law."

So, if you want a matching, but opposite symbol, then a single arrow, pointing upwards sounds like it would do the trick.

I'm not sure how authentically this relates to Taoism though...

Quote:

im trying to convey the same basic idea as the yin yang using the chaos/order symbols. how life embodies yin (chaos) but embraces yang (order)...that kind of thing. it will be basic reminder of how to I choose to be.

I don't want to draw you into a conversation that you don't want to have, but what do you mean by the above? - tell us more about it. It sounds like something important happened to you, and it would be interesting to hear more about it.

I think the arrow star is a great chaos symbol.

When people think order alot of times they will think law. They seem to go together.

If you are interested here is a sight that has various law symbols starting with the traditional scales of justice. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/symbolsoflaw.pdf

The Bhagwa Chaos Star
http://www.markdefrates.com/images/taichaos.jpg

How about a DNA strand for order?

That symbol can represent both chaos and order at the same time. You can't have chaos without order, nor order without chaos, and they both create a balance as shown by the arrows. Besides, if the arrows were purely chaotic, they wouldn't be uniformly distributed; therein lies the representation of order. I think you should go with "Thug Life" tat'd across your stomach. :lol:

st33lr4t, first things first: I love your avatar!

If you want symbols for balance from a Taoisst philosphy, why not split the Tao symbol and put the empty/black/female/chaos/yin swirl on one arm and the full/white/male/order/yang on the other?

Or, of course, you could always start with a wall hanging...