Is the World essentially ordered or essentially Chaotic?

Question

Is there, at society’s core, an intrinsic sense of order that prevails?
Or, is it the other way around? Chaos is the primary force and People merely create pockets of Order within it; you carve order into the realm of randomness and disorder.

Ps The Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't apply to the Universe; it's not a closed system.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, whatever we do in life will not have an overall effect on the irreversible road to equilibrium. The Second Law of Thermodynamics stipulates that energy in a closed system always flows from a state of higher concentration to a state of lower concentration --- from orderliness to randomness. This law is a little more complex because it decrees that (in a closed system): Water always runs downhill, time moves only in one direction and cannot be reversed, a cup of coffee will get cooler if left alone but will never get hotter by itself, buildings will slowly decay and must inevitably collapse unless repaired, the Universe must ultimately run out of usable energy and will die without even a whimper.

Entropy ceaselessly and surreptitiously undermines all of our efforts when we try to create order in this world by healing, building bridges, houses, storing food, building wealth --- you name it, and we have to fight entropy every step of the way.

Entropy is the invisible force behind Murphy's Laws: Anything that can go wrong, not only will it go wrong, it must go wrong, as decreed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics....so my answer is chaotic order....

Answer 2

The world/universe assembly is orderly, as evidenced by the repeatability of physical laws. What we call Chaos is an orderly system too complex for us to understand at the time. When we understand it, it is no longer Chaos. Basically entropy is complexity going to simplicity. The natural way is entropic, IE the breakdown of order into sloppiness. This implies that our universe at one time was more orderly than it is now, as entropy has been at work for some time now, and the universe is still orderly enough for there to be such a thing as science.
For those who say that order is an artificial construct imposed by humans on chaotic nature, where did all these complex organisms and such come from before we were here?
As far as where all this came from, the law of cause and effect (the basic scientific law that says nothing ever just happens, it is caused by something else) requires that we must either believe in a Creator, or Magic.

Answer 3

Both.
I now look at the world more towards the chaos factor than anything. I used to be the opposite.
I think the fact that so many people assume there's inherent order, leads to them constantly making bad predictions about what's going on, what decisions to make, etc., because they think things are "meant to happen", or that "there's a reason for everything", & stuff like that.
Those are (IMO) very bad ways of thinking. They may bring temporary comfort in some way to some people, but it ignores the chaos that really has a huge effect on things.
Those people seem to be very dumbfounded on a regular basis as things turn out to be the opposite of what they thought was "supposed" to happen.
Then new philosophical or religious explainations have to be invented to explain away things like the Holocost, which I defy someone to tell me how that fits into "there's a reason for everything", or "it's meant to happen". If that's not chaos, I don't know what is.

So, to sum up, I think chaos is inherent, and order is part of nature, but mostly the order we humans experience is from us intentionally imposing order on the chaos.

Answer 4

The world is primarily chaos, Keep in mind that relatively well ordered earth is a INSIGNIFICANT part of the universe.The universe is whole is extremely chaotic, and it is EXPANDING making more chaotic by the second.
According to the second law of thermodynamics[1] -- while in some places order may be increasing OVERALL the chaos is winning and will eventually win.

Answer 5

That's a hell of a question! might be chaotic in preliminary times, but chaos always prevails! chaos is the major force to create, to live, to love, to discover... all in the world, even life and death is restrict to chaos or its cause and consequences. Even in quantic physics the chaos is the answer to all matter. If we see the world or universe as a projection of ourselves we will have a chaotic system, there's only the fiction of order.

Answer 6

Maybe not an intrinsic sense of order, but a desire for order that pushes society. The security that comes with order is something that humans are attracted to. Chaos may be natural, but if it is, it is a part of nature that we (at least attempt) to repel.

Answer 7

The universe and our world is ordered. Everything has it's place and time, as does chaos. Chaos is a term we use to describe that which we can't explain because we do not understand it's essential purpose.

Answer 8

I would say chaotic overall and I completely agree that there are pockets of order in it but I think if the world was more ordered then there wouldn't be so many wars and so much poverty, people would sort themselves out and do something about it.

Answer 9

The world is essentially chaos built on top of deterministic chaos (which is predictable) built on top of quantum mechanical nonsense, with perhaps an underlying order of more deterministic chaos. It's best looked at as a double-decker open-faced chaos sandwich on wheat.

Answer 10

The earth in its most original state of being was created as a garden...even deep within the depths of the ocean there is a softest, profound stillness. One just has to mentally extract mankind and all other species out of the equation, and the earth in all its entirety, will look as plain as a calm summers day in the park...