David Peat

136 From Certainty to Uncertaintyengineers know of a problem called intermittency. This occurs whenthe regular, ordered output of an amplifier is suddenly swamped byrandom “noise.” These periods of random noise can also cease suddenlyand give way to periods of regular behavior. When intermittencyis occurring we have the alternation of randomness with simple order.It would be easy to say that a defect in the design of the amplifier(in fact a nonlinear amplifier) results in the occasional breakdown ofregular behavior to produce chaos. On the other hand, it is equally trueto say that periods of chaos (highly complex behavior) break down toleave regular behavior. In one case chaos emerges out of simple order,in the other order emerges out of chaos.Human societies have their periods of chaos—Carnival, MardiGras, Oktoberfest—in which normal social rules are abandoned. Mendress in women’s clothing, married people indulge in sexual license,there are orgies of eating and drinking, night is turned into day, authorityis mocked, and the Fool rules the day. This can be seen as atemporary breakdown of the stable order of society and the lapse ofrule. On the other hand it could be that within the apparent chaos ofthe carnival can be found the source of a society’s order over the rest ofthe year.Self-OrganizationIn some cases chaos rules when order is relaxed, in others order has itsseeds in the realm of chaos. Go back to that example of a heated pan ofwater. Competition between hot water rising from the bottom andcooler water descending from the surface produces haphazard, chaoticbehavior. But with the right degree of heating these apparently randomflows and counterflows suddenly settle down and organize themselvesinto a regular pattern of hexagonal cells of rising and fallingwater. This pattern remains stable, provided that there is a constantflow of energy, as heat, through the system. Similar patterns are foundin deserts, where the competing flow of hot air rising from the sandmeets cooler air falling from above. The result is that regular patternsof rising and falling air move grains of sand until hexagonal patternsform on the desert floor, just like the cells in a bee hive.