File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_1997/97-03-25.044, message 224


Date: 	Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:51:07 -0500
From: "kenneth.mackendrick" <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: chaos theory and entrophy



I've been following bits and pieces of the chora line and just thought i'd add in a 
few things about chaos theory and entrophy:

If there is any order in the universe it is both anarchic and entrophic.  Everything is 
sliding into greater and greater degrees of heat and energy (thermodynamics etc.). 
 Evolution, diversity, variability etc. all contribute to this.  The faster a species 
reproduces the more entrophy is created - an unintentional chaotic teleology if you 
will.  Diversity is good in the sense that it promotes adaption and the potential to 
reproduce - thus serving entrophy once again.  This essentially amounts to an 
every increasing decrease in order.  Things get more and more complicated as 
they go - wearing on and on - contributing to entrophy.  It is a dice game - but it all 
serves the process of disorder.  Chaos theory is just the attempt to predict these 
random events - to systematize them in an unsystematic theory (alas dialectics 
has not yet worn out its welcome).
Any attempt to apply this scientific analysis to social theory or ethics will end in 
failure and incoherent theories of human relationships.  The social world is to be 
determined by us (all of us) not the conclusions of  physics theories.  Insights that 
jump from physics to the humanities 1.  reduce the context of science in a 
completely incoherent manner and 2. simply wind up being cruel to other humans.  
Diversity doesn't need a biological or genetic theory (at least if we're going to talk 
about ethics - it shouldn't).  Biology or physics can not and does not find an 
"application" in human rights.  This kind of stuff is simply mental gymnastics (ie.  
the current discussions about multi-culturalism and difference are also represented 
in current physics theory.  Nuts.  Bad theory and shallow research, however poetic, 
shouldn't replace thought).  Perhaps fun to think about but it is inevitably 
anti-humanist and, if the term makes sense, anti-post-humanist.
Am i here separating disciplines in a way that is problematic?  Probably - maybe 
physics is just another form of moralism.  Maybe not.  I'm not willing to jump on the 
 ethics of entrophy bandwagon though.  We deserve better than that.
ken




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