Intro to two Chaos Theories: the mathematical and the social (theory of memes)

Facilitator: Andrej Ristic

email: meshaselimovic@yahoo.ca

The goal of this course is to give the students an appreciation for different meanings of the concept of Chaos; mathematical and the social, Darwinian (theory of memes -- theory that all genes create individual philosophies that help them survive and succeed somewhere).

Chaos theory is about explaining apparent disorder in a very ordered way. Chaos theory states that things are not really random, just complex. Many apparently random events can be represented by a simple computation which, when iterated, produce complex results. That is a formula which is constantly repeated can produce models of trees and weather system. The values from each stage are feed back into the next stage, also known as feed back. Chaos theory is about patterns. Because a chaotic system is about repeated steps often irregular patterns, or sometimes almost regular patterns are produces.

People do get scared of the math one, but it is my promise as a facilitator that only the basic understanding of math shall be needed, no actual working knowledge. Also for the people that have some working knowledge of math: your knowledge shall be improved upon and you'll find that only second hour of the first lecture (functions) and the first hour of the second lecture (derivation) shall explain what you already know. The level of math shall depend on the desires of students.

The math portion shall begin with an attempt at a definition of science, role of math in there and will move onto definition of functions (grade 10 math), dealing only with basic polynomial functions (simpler than grade 10). Second class moves onto derivation (grade 12 math), also basic polynomials (simpler than grade 12). Also in the second class will the concept of mathematical chaos be defined, explained using iteration. From there we move onto Julia and Mandelbrot sets and definition of dimension. What does the "dimension" mean? The book used shall be just the fragment of www.hypertextbook.com/chaos.

"This is the law that all life evolves by the different survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails on our own planet". But do we have to go to distant worlds to find other kinds of replicator... I think a new kind of replicator has recently emerged on this very planet. It is still... drifting clumsily about in its primeval soup... The new soup is the soup of the human culture. We need a name for the new replicator... 'meme'" (Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene pp.206)

Second half of the course deals with the theory of memes. The theory that each gene finds individual philosophy/moral centre/way of behaviour, "a culture" that enables them to stay in existence longer. So we can talk about Darwinian struggle between cultures. On that principle, history divided into 3 chapters shall be discussed: tribal/family, Christian/capitalist and anarchist. The book for this part shall be Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom ($23+tx).

These two halves of the course give the basic understanding of concepts of chaos and entropy. So there comes the point of the course: two paths to chaos as a guiding principle of all.

Classes:

Jan. 12. Intro, definition of science, place of math in it, intro to functions

Jan. 19. Derivation, intro to iteration and the concept of Chaos

Jan. 26. iteration, bifurcation

Feb. 2. Julia and Mandelbrot sets,

Feb. 9. dimensions

Reading Week

Feb. 23. Introduction to the R. Dawkins' theory of memes, Introductory chapters in the book, focus on Chinese cultural revolution.

Mar. 1. "Why Humans Self Destruct": concept of superorganism, examples usually from the animal kingdom, concept "us versus them".

Mar. 8. "Man, Inventor of the Invisible World": concept of genetic preservation, concept of shamanism.

Mar. 15. "The Mysteries of the Evolutionary Learning Machine": just touched on it, with the concept of "expendability of males", moving to "Ideology is theft": concept of pecking order of nations introduced. Explanation of the concept of genetic history and the division into tribal, Christian/capitalist and anarchist histories given.

Mar. 22. Next barbarians and the US Empire discussed.