Chaos And Order

The scientific discovery that chaotic systems embody deep structures of order is one of such wide-ranging implications that it has attracted attention across a spectrum of disciplines, including the humanities. In this volume, fourteen theorists explore the significance for literary and cultural studies of the new paradigm of chaotics, forging connections between contemporary literature and the science of chaos. They examine how changing ideas of order and disorder enable new readings of scientific and literary texts, from Newton's Principia to Ruskin's autobiography, from Victorian serial fiction to Borges's short stories. N. Katherine Hayles traces shifts in meaning that chaos has undergone within the Western tradition, suggesting that the science of chaos articulates categories that cannot be assimilated into the traditional dichotomy of order and disorder. She and her contributors take the relation between order and disorder as a theme and develop its implications for understanding texts, metaphors, metafiction, audience response, and the process of interpretation itself. Their innovative and diverse work opens the interdisciplinary field of chaotics to literary inquiry.

The essays in this volume collectively transform perspectives previously experienced as divergent, conflicting, and inconsistent into a common and complex orientation to problems central to the natural and social sciences involving transitions between order and disorder."--Jacket.

Explores the confusion among physicists at the beginning of the 20th century when experimental findings kept not fitting into their mechanical view of the universe, the theoretical speculations and experimental innovations they responded with, and the new science that emerged. The mathematical details are set apart in boxes to allow nontechnical readers to engage the flow of the narrative uninterrupted. Paper edition (unseen), $29.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Chaos can enter our lives in many different ways--through death, divorce or conflict--with friends and family, or at work. Joanne Wieland-Burston, through her work as a Jungian analyst, is no stranger to chaos, and frequently acts as companion, support and guide to those whose lives are in turmoil. Chaos and Order in the World of the Psycheshows that the experience of chaos is generally both negative and frightening, destabilizing the individual and provoking feelings of insecurity. People, therefore, often seek to deny and avoid chaos--but chaos that is blocked off does not disappear. It manifests itself in depression, fear, anxiety and various physical symptoms, often making us incapable of performing the simplest daily tasks. The author describes how she helps people to meet the chaos, to accept and see it as the starting-point for a new order in their lives. This "organic order" is better suited to their needs and personality, and provides them with the basis to come through their chaos and to lead fuller, happier and more satisfying lives. Wieland-Burston explores the modern attitude to chaos, showing how we shun and deny it while at the same time overestimating the importance of orderliness. Contemporary western society has no tools to deal with chaos, unlike "primitive" cultures, whose myths, tales and rites reveal a deep commitment to developing and transmitting to future generations models of chaos confrontation. Chaos and Order in the World of the Psychedraws upon these ancient cultures and upon modern scientific findings of chaos theory to show how we can regain the wisdom we once possessed and have now lost.

As the planetoid Thanatos Minor explodes into atoms, a specially-fitted cruiser escapes the mass destruction and hurtles into space only a step ahead of hostile pursuit. On board Trumpet are a handful of bedraggled fugitives from an outlaw world - old enemies suddenly and violently thrown together in a desperate bid for survival. Among this unlikely crew of allies are Morn Hyland, once a UMC cop, now a prisoner to the electrodes implanted in her brain; her son, Davies, "force-grown" to adulthood by the alien Amnion and struggling to understand his true identity; the amoral space buccaneer Nick Succorso, whose most daring act of piracy could be his last; and Angus Thermopyle, unstoppable cyborg struggling to wrest control of his own mind from his UMC programmers.

We are confronted with emergent systems everywhere and Holland shows how a theory of emergence can predict many complex behaviours in art and science. This book will appeal to scientists and anyone interested in scientific theory.

A pioneering book that shows how the two great themes of classic science, order and chaos, are being reconciled in a new and unexpected synthesis Order Out of Chaos is a sweeping critique of the discordant landscape of modern scientific knowledge. In this landmark book, Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine and acclaimed philosopher Isabelle Stengers offer an exciting and accessible account of the philosophical implications of thermodynamics. Prigogine and Stengers bring contradictory philosophies of time and chance into a novel and ambitious synthesis. Since its first publication in France in 1978, this book has sparked debate among physicists, philosophers, literary critics and historians.