Become Chaos

Become Chaos

Samuel Bird

Facts and things ebb and flow in their preeminence. States of affairs come into being, brought by the unstable prior state of affairs. Being hereditarily unstable, those states of affairs further collapse into a new state of affairs with no clear end in mind, though there are some hints at its direction. No matter the causal relationship consciousness plays to being, these more atomic facts are ever-shifting. While each atomic fact such as the exact position of a specific giving element doesn’t “matter,” a series of them certainly do. This mattering that matter does, is only in terms of those minds that can value it. One particle is misplaced, and you have no thought. Many particles of lead that also have a velocity toward you, and you now can value that state of affairs. Because of the example degree of myopia that consciousness happens to have, only some facts can have values, and it is only by our relation to them. Here we get to the age of dichotomy of being that pulls the heart one way and refuses it the other. Chaos as either value-centric models or models available for conceptualizing, and cosmos as that order that gives value or is available for our simple perception of it stands on either side of us. Or, do they? Do chaos and cosmos exist in the world, or only their instance in the mind? If it is the value that makes the chaos or cosmos, we find that within our minds. If it is the ordered structure, everything has an order and structure, it is just not readily available for our perception and cognition as it may not follow the model of thought we possess. And yet, we fight. We battle uphill, in the rain, and somehow and seemingly on fire, to battle entropy. The ceasing of being via its final collapse into facthood. However, perhaps this chaos that can never collapse into one state of being that does not need a resolution, is what keeps being, being. If there was one last finale of probability states and determined matter to play their part, there would be no more energy for them to bow on that stage no one would watch for. For this reason, chaos as the inevitable collapsing of one state to another with no resolution is inevitable along with a few possible roles consciousness could play. Then what is this that we fight? Finally, should we?

You did it, didn’t you? You heard cosmos and chaos and you couldn’t help but tie it to your simple dichotomous model. The dark and the light, the good and the evil, and the cosmic and chaotic each find a place on these continuums for us. We make these dichotomies, assume them in the world, and then become confused when they are only partially manifested. These conceptual models are wonderful at getting one started with the linguistic capturing of reality to make sense of it, but at some point, one has to take that leap into that water. That ocean of contingencies I have spoken about before is before us. You can stay on the bank by leaving your assumptions unchecked, or you can slip below the waves and drown in a sea of “maybes” and “perhaps’.” There is another option, we can begin to engage with our existence by treading water, and maybe find some direction to our swimming. Reality never asked your permission to fit into the series of models you were taught, and in fact doesn’t make the promise to even be consistent with past experience with us. It is wild, unruly, and free of us. We can be bitter and throw it off from us, or we can learn to ride the beast, not by its taming, but by a strong grip of its mane. Here it stands, or runs, free from any perceptions we could have. Value it all you will, it will still do as it will. For this reason, be careful with lazy associations between the chaotic and cosmic as good and evil. That is you giving extreme and primary value or lack to states of affairs that meant nothing when you found them. Perhaps instead of your enemy, an opportunistic friend. 

What do you think of when I say cosmos and chaos? While my thoughts on this are neither conclusive nor expansive, I see two categories of what is going on. We are either describing the value of the state of affairs at hand, or the system’s structure being recognizable. Strangely enough, these can even be at odds, though they can sometimes go hand in hand. When I got home from work the other day, my kittens had climbed on my counters, pushed some stuff down, and tore up my tomato plant. This state of affairs was not one I valued as these were damaged and in the way. The structure was also not a system I liked as I would term it messy from my mind not knowing the pattern at play. For example, where is my drinking cup? This is then chaos in both the senses. I then cleaned it up, put things where they belonged, and believed in moralization enough to give an ignored lecture to my kittens. Now that it was clean, I both valued the state of affairs, and it made sense to me. I am careful to ascribe consciousness to animals, but let’s pretend for a moment. It was cosmos to me, but chaos to the kittens. They didn’t value the state of affairs, because they wanted to change them again later. They also didn’t understand the patterns of the system as cats likely don’t know what shelves are about, other than as a launching pad. So it is arbitrary? No, we had grounded and consistent reasons for our epistemic and asthetic evaluations. However, it is subjective as the question is how these states of affairs are to us, and only consciousness is a thing that there is something like it to be that thing. While the parties at hand were at odds, the two definitions my poor imagination have come up were still aligned. Let’s imagine a pretty little swamp. The shores of the swamp to more solid ground have a random structure to them that comes from the chaotic state the terrain was before water. I once saw the world’s second roundest lake, and it was a big deal because of how well it reflected our mental patterns. However, our pond has a random shape with lillypads and cypress trees seemingly randomly littering the place. A frog here and a turtle there, but there is no clear pattern that we make sense of. This is not to say that there is not a pattern that is necessary from it’s causes, but we can’t know all of them. We look at this randomly shaped pond in its unorganized shape and perhaps love it. It is full of that same life that we possess. Now, imagine a mult-lane freeway is built in the swamp after it has been dried and all the little frogs and turtles were dead. The pattern is much more noticable. It is a straight black line with clear patterns of white and yellow lines. This is a time where we would perhaps have higher value for the state that is harder to comprehend. So then, what state of affairs is desirable?

Let words fall by your side as you gaze to heaven and see it as the unknowable all that it is. Is it valuable? Only from what it is can all valuable facts come. There are questions here about conperbeval creation where the mind perceives being and then values it. How can this be true if the world has no structure? As I said in my article about penguins, your inner world is more closely related to your conscious will, and yet it is probably more chaotic as dreams lose a sense of sequential causality. Perhaps we dream up this world around us, but does a dream ask your permission to show you a nightmare or eudaimonia? Could one be a Platonist and believe some initial form of a fact precedes its instant here? I am not convinced, but that could be the case. However, it would be hubris to think we do or could attain those forms. We get to the “so what” of the argument now. Is Samuel just using his big words to fill the massive chasm that is his valuation of himself? At least, not solely. Remember, I have an objective with and for you my friend. I wish for you to have earned a case to value your life as it comes to a close. I think there is a profound insight that can come from what we are speaking about here. Aside from your useful mental model, there is no cosmos. The arguments for deity that come from order, really mean order that happens to allow for life, but even then just barely so and perhaps a new life could be in another world. However, we don’t have other realities. There is just what is. As I will speak to later, utopias, shoulds, and heavens have been the hell and desolation of man. The mark missed that was never strikable. It is then how these ideas can augment our aim to higher places, rather than to sponsor their infinite distance. I can’t expect you to reach to the sky and pull down heaven, but in thinking about heaven, you have a model for some small ways you could change your immediecy. Please then, quit trying to make cosmos out of your world and existence. It is not so, and will easily consume your soul with no change to try. Rather, it is the battle and not its victory that you fight. Your chaotic facts you swim in are just facts, but they can be towards your ends with careful contemplation. No misfortune can then befall you as you experience nothing more than opportunity. As far as you are concerned, there are only two states of affairs, those that you find beautiful and possible and those you aren’t alive for it to matter. 

If my assertion that the world is chaos has been sufficient, then it is the way that the world is to be known. Knowledge is that sufficiently justified pulling of verbs and nouns from the world without us, to the world that is within. If your goal is to then know the world, you are attempting to pull its conceptual instance into your mind. And how again, is this world? It is Chaotic. So then, you are pulling chaos into your mind. When you read books or sense the world, does it tell you happy and chearful news you like? Does it point to simple and more prominent laws that govern reality? No. You find things you are disgusted by and that there is some nuance or exception to everything. So, we should give up before it gets worse? No. But, we are pulling chaos within ourselves. Yes, and I am very proud of you for it. You are removing the parameters for how we wish to find the world and carefully weighing our assumptions to do so. We can let our cognitive dissonance rage on as we ignore swaths and series of facts that don’t fit, or we can realize any pattern to this world is one that we can’t conceptualize. That takes care of the systems aspect, but what of the value? If it is, it is available for valuing. If all you can have is what is, love such. If fate stops you at every turn, thank it for its guidance. Allow grace and skepticism to ease that rift between an unknowable mind and unknowable world. By then taking in reality as most accurately we find it, we find ourselves not at odds with it, but as part of it. We are part and partial of all, and somehow aligned with a structure with no lines. The next sentence I say, I value. I have become chaos. I will become chaos. I am chaos. I am merging with the “is” as the “am” and finding myself strangely belonging. My knowledge has become more real as I reflect that thing I seek to pull into my mind. I fight not my own internal dynamics. I am no longer at odds with the basic structure of myself and the world around me. I learn to fish in the rain, work in the sun, and travel in the snow. I become comfortable with ridicule and shame. I accept and participate with my failings and limitations. I say all this, but am I just seeking to order the world in language? You’ve read my writings enough to know I at least had the dignity to fail at such. Wanting to not be a hypocrite, which I loath, I have to lead this charge. I can’t write all my books. I can’t share everything thought. Finally, my last great wish, I know it is likely and I accept that no one will ever read my book. I have descended into chaos and found myself at the bottom. I no longer wait for the world to present itself to me as I wish or to bend it until so. Cosmos is then taking the world as you want it. Cosmos is taking the world as it is. I don’t reach to the sky and stop the snowy clouds, I learn to shiver and love snow. What if I fail and err by wishing other than what is? Well then, it looks like my attempt to become chaos is chaotic, and that makes sense to me. I am the mess, the sinner, the fool, and no fact is past my participation. I am part of all that is because I have become chaos.