In Defense of Chaos

Chaos gets a bad rap. Few people realize that without the dynamics of chaos, order would not exist. In fact, nothing would exist. Without chaos, there would be no creation, no structure, and no existence. After all, order is merely the repetition of patterns; chaos is the process that establishes those patterns. L. K. Samuels goes beyond the normal boundaries studied by chaologists. It views science through a political and socioeconomic looking glass, exposing paradoxes and contrarian insights found in swarm intelligence, genetic algorithms, the licensing effect, self-organizing systems, strange attractors, edge-of-chaos disequilibrium, geometrical fractals, cellular automata, and autocatalytic sets, to name a few. In Defense of Chaos examines why chaology provides ample scientific evidence that open-ended, adaptable and evolving systems work far better than closed-ended, rigid, and deterministic ones. Not only do dynamic systems work better, but they also foster self-determination. The nature of the physical world favors the freedom for people to self-organize and self-govern without the interference of external command and control structures.