From: maedhros@yabbs
To: Natalie@yabbs
Subject: re: Chaos
Date: Fri Jun 17 01:49:27 1994

In message Chaos, Natalie said:

(Nat, of course these comments are meant for your friend :)

> If science seems to be making our universe, and in fact our world, more 
> understandable and orderly, doesn't that mean we could be headed for 
> chaos?  The more closed and cause-effect things seem, the more 
> possibilities there might be.  

This assumes that science "creates" order.  This is hardly the case (at
least there is no justifiable evidence to lead to this conclusion). 
Scince merely finds order that already existed.  By inference, this would
suggest that the possibilities are NOT multiplying, we're just noticing
more of them now.  Since there is no evidence that science can either
"create" order or chaos simply through observation, the conclusion seems
unjustified.

> Perhaps the appearance of order is just a way to shut down the 
> faith of the human mind in certain things, to limit the possibilities.

Once again, this is ascribing powers of change to sensory observation. 
Given no supporting evidence, this seems to be a groundless claim.

> Take the curse, for example.  Very few people in 
> industrialized nations believe in curses anymore, so they don't work.

Non sequitur.  This one'd give Aristotle a cardiac.  If I didn't believe
in the existence of guns, I bet you could still kill me with one.  The
author is attemting to ascribe power over the physical world through
belief.  Neat theory, but she would have to show a lot of evidence to
support that claim (of which she gives none).

> Not that they didn't work to begin with.  They did. 

Once again, a nice theory, but unless she's an expert in this field (and
she'd have to be a minor deity to qualify for that), then it's a
groundless statement lacking evidence and, hence, merit.

If you can send her this response I'd like to get her to try and expand
and try to support this theory though (it could be interesting).

Maedhros /\
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