Disorder and the perception of order

We look up to the sky to  watch the biggest stars and look into a microscope to see the smallest organisms so we could find the meaning about the world surrounding us, thus finding the meaning about ourselves, assuming the universe is communicating itself through meaning and order, through languages rigidly and firmly structured, mathematics as an example, the language of the universe as they say,   is based on order and logic, otherwise it wouldn’t have any perceivable meaning, those languages are there to project reality, so if language is order and language is the projection of reality, is reality a manifestation of  order, or it’s just the way we perceive it ? of course, if you see the complexity of life on earth, the vastness of the universe, the way stars and planets and black holes they are, you know there is a meaning in the universe, isn’t it ? 

Well to begin with, are meaning and order true to the entity of everything or they are just a production of the human mind? Order is a state of logical and comprehensible arrangement among separate elements, so by definition order is our perception of  the outside world in the situation of logical interpretation , but that doesn’t deny that our environment is in disorder, right ? Well, to explain more, let’s imagine you’re sitting in an old Moroccan house, with a beautiful arabesque in front of you, just like the one above, you watch this ornament and you admire it because it represent symmetry, aesthetic shapes and your vision of beauty and perfection, it creates an impression of satisfaction because it represents order, it follows a certain logic and path, and that way a pattern forms in your mind between this arabesque and beauty trough the median of order. Now imagine with me another ornament that doesn’t follow any path or logics and has no recognizable shape, when you look at it, it repels you, maybe you’d call it modern art, but like the rest of the sane population of this blue planet, you’ll turn your head away in non-understanding  and you’ll enjoy the rest of your mint tea. That’s why realistic painting appeal more people than abstract, because the first is logic abiding, while the other represents rebellion expression from that same logic. By this example I want to explain that the human mind tends more to recognize order than disorder, and finds it easy to make patterns if it finds dots to connect, and through this modality we comprehend, we constitute a certain knowledge that could be useful, that’s how our ancestors got to survive and prosper. So does this perception of order exists outside our consciousness ?

To try to find an answer to this question, we need to comprehend disorder first. Our reality is a series of conditions that gather to form our perception. As an example, if it’s round, smooth, red and sweet , it’s an apple, so those conditions by themselves don’t make up a reality but by combining they do, and to understand our reality we make paths between those conditions through our senses and ability to analyse, sometime it’s easy if they are stable and controllable, it’s easy to predict  that an apple will fall down to the ground wherever you go on earth , because the condition ( gravity ) that influence this process is unchangeable. But sometimes it isn’t that easy, just ask a meteorologist. To know what will be the weather tonight, you need to know the conduct of every molecule of air on the planet to the scale of millimetres, which is very difficult, and all we can do about it is just projections, plus, if we count the enormous difference a negligible factor can make we fall in a situation we cannot calculate its outcome, this situation gives us an image of anarchist reality. Although, it’s not impossible if we knew every contributing factor in this process, but it’s very difficult. So this state of “disorder” is the result of our lack of knowledge of the conditions that affect our environment and ourselves, and the human personality had this urge to control its surrounding, because we know that if in a state of blindness toward our world, it means weakness in our capability, thus a treat to our survival and wellbeing. Our primitive selves made high designers and ultimate creators beyond our understanding and over the lack of control to fill in the blank and fulfil our need to safety and “order”, but lately science taught us that what is unknown and uncontrollable is not to be feared, but to be studied and understood, not to give premature, mythical and comforting answers to provide some psychological stability, but to challenge this state of disorder and look through ignorance and construct provable and logical explanations, it taught us that the chaos is “natural” and it’s a part of  or maybe our entire reality, and if we need to comprehend the world, we need to embrace the disorder and work within it, to move a little step further to understand it and make it less confusing. So is the universe in disorder?

Well, if the universe had a self-awareness, which we can discuss in a later article, it wouldn’t see chaos as one of its enemies, in fact, and as thermodynamic teaches us, in an isolated system entropy tends to increase, and entropy is the fancy name for chaos or disorder, if it wouldn’t for entropy no reaction would ever take place, energy wouldn’t move around, there wouldn’t be no stars or planets, no life either, chemical reaction wouldn’t happen and I wouldn’t be writing this article, so disorder  is “good” because it’s the motor of everything, it’s what makes energy flow and metamorphose. To try to sum up this out of order thoughts of mine, we must see order in our surrounding,  otherwise we won’t understand or make senses of anything, but we must also understand that disorder is everywhere and it doesn’t hold the pejorative meaning we often give it . So embrace the disorder and enjoy your order while it lasts, because the universe is running and so is time,  and by that time, have a great philosophical journey.