Orderly disorder ---------------- The contradictory phrase (after N. Katherine Hayles's 'Chaos as Orderly Disorder: Shifting Ground in Contemporary Literature and Science' New Literary History 20, 1989, pp.305-22) can be taken as a neat attempt to correlate chaos theory with dialectical thinking. Evidently, the relationship between order (that which can be classified and rationalised) and disorder (that cannot, because it is too chaotic and generalised) does not lie simply in opposition. The science of chaos (as a contradictory phrase, also sometimes called 'chaotics') characterises the apparent contradiction in the scientific study of chaotic phenomena. What has been discovered is that within the unpredictability of chaotic systems lie deep structures of order (Hayles, 1991: 1). However, the behaviour is so complex that conventional mathematical method cannot adequately account for these processes. Chaos theory A common understanding of Chaos theory describes how a relatively small input can have massive consequences (note: the term 'chaos' was popularised through James Gleick's book Chaos: Making a New Science, New York: Viking, 1987. Also this position is probably the complete opposite of Foucault who would tend to see the global impact upon the local only, in a closed system of discipline). Chaos theory has captured the popular imagination but also has serious analogical implications: 'A small fluctuation may start an entirely new evolution that will drastically change the whole behaviour of the macroscopic system. The analogy with social phenomena, even with history is inescapable. [...and at the level of matter, that is] active, as matter leads to irreversible processes and irreversible processes organise matter.' (Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, London: HarperCollins, 1985: 14 & xxix, quoted in Owens, 1996: 85. Owens is also drawing upon the work of Roy Bhasker such as Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, London: Verso 1986). Brian Goodwin has outlined some of these issues in his essay 'Complexity, Creativity, and Society' (1997), casting new developments in science such as chaos theory as part of its dialectical relationship with broader social issues, and points to resultant ethical issues in assuming things to be simply accidental and contingent (1997: 121). The suggestion is that systems, even social systems, are not closed but also open to influence and change from external and internal factors. Furthermore, that scale is of crucial relevance measured in fractals rather than accepted and absolutist measurements and global scale - at both micro and macro levels. The much quoted example is given of the very scale of the ruler determining the measurement of the coastline of Britain (from Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, New York, Freeman 1883) - emphasising the truism that the smaller the measurement the longer the length of the thing measured (even if measuring a ruler for instance). Against Newtonian mechanics and Euclidean geometry, scale is seen to be more complex and unpredictable. It would appear that old systems of measurement that assume that systems are linear, closed and fixed are no longer appropriate to a vision of a networked society and technology that emphasises non-linearity, openness and mutability. The term 'chaos' suggests a gaping disordered void, or abyss (from the greek verb-stem 'kha') and Hayles charts the general Western tendency to think of chaos in negative terms by its contrast to Taoist thinking (1991: 3). The argument that disorder is no mere opposite of order confounds this commonplace interpretation. Within self-organising systems, disorder may lead to order, and order is encoded into disorder at a fundamental level. Science becomes cast in terms of disorder rather than rational order, but this is a dialectical relationship in that simultaneously 'there is also, paradoxically, a sense in which it is about order'; and then quoting Hayles: 'complex systems nevertheless become chaotic in predictable ways'. Chaotic processes and systems express order and disorder in patterns that 'can be mapped and described in terms of period doubling and recursive symmetry' (Owens, 1996: 85 - I need to define these terms). In other words, they are not absolutely chaotic (or random) but express a complex structure of order and disorder. The science of complexity, in other words, 'refers to the potential for emergent order in complex and unpredictable phenomena' (Goodwin, 1997: 112). This complex patterning is evident in 'strange attractors'; sometimes known as the Lorentz attractor (Edward Lorentz in the 1970s, developing the earlier work of PoincarŽ on mapping planetary movements, represented these behaviour patterns using a computer). Along with a diverse range of mathematical equations, this is one example of the ways in which very small changes can be seen to have unpredictable consequences, even though they are linked in a deterministic manner (thus Lorenz accounted for the difficulty of predicting the weather). The system expresses unpredictability despite its deterministic character. When a change takes place in a predicted chain of events, the strange attractor causes the initial system and the disturbed system to move apart exponentially fast. I hope it is clear that I am not so much interested in a precise scientific mapping or explanation of this but its metaphoric potential: 'tiny disturbances can produce exponentially divergent behaviour' (Goodwin, 1997: 113. As mentioned, the principle is important to Goodwin as he points to the ethical dimension expressed through retaining some sense of order). Certainty is certainly thrown into question, but a further aspect is implied by my paradoxical way of expressing this. Another key term for complex systems is 'recursive symmetry' that Hayles describes as the kind of perspective required 'to see the predictability that lies hidden within their unpredicatable evolutions' (1991: 10). This explains the relationship between large and small scale wherein the form remains constant (a pattern within a pattern and so on). In other words, the concept explains how dynamic systems are very sensitive to small changes. Furthermore, Ilya Prigogine (predating Gleick's work of course) suggests that (new) order might be generated through disorder. In a description that sounds rather like the Internet, Prigogine and Stengers maintain that all systems contain sub-systems (1985). Furthermore, within these systems and sub-systems, positive feedback loops (from computer science) might generate the further development of a process, to the point of causing a fundamental and unforeseeable change of the existing system (by analogy, one could think of capitalism as one such system that contains the seeds of its own destruction). This is important as it emphasises the constructive positive role that disorder might play in creating order. According to this logic, at the 'bifurcation point', chance takes hold of determinism, and as a result either disorder or order may be generated. In science, this is the theory of self-organising matter that Owens has adopted to explain the possibilities of a social system - wherein order is both expressed in chaos and might be generated out of chaos (1996: 86). Living systems such as society itself is clearly unpredictable, determined by rules (strange attractors for instance), but emergent and unpredictable. The possibilities are large and complex, but not endless nor open-ended. Owens is partly concerned to distance herself from what she sees as the mistaken (postmodern) view of taking a theory like the one of chaos as proof of uncertainty, virtuality and scientific myth-making (she is particularly thinking of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1970 and Feyerabend's Against Method, 1975). Chaos and theory However, clearly such theories do contribute to the critique of order and established discourses such as science. Reflexivity is an established critical method in quantum mathematics as much as cultural studies or psychoanalysis, wherein scientific theory 'introduced the effect of the observer upon the observed at the microscopic level and the notion of relativity at the macroscopic' (Owens, 1996: 86). In fact she goes further and suggests an unconscious hypocrisy in denying progress and teleology on the one hand, and a belief in the progression from 'spurious order to playful disorder' in orthodox postmodernism on the other. At the same time, scientific method has always embraced a strategic sense of uncertainty not just the arts and humanities. There is a necessary politics to the representation of order here. For instance, the provisional and unstable aspects of science (such as in the work of Newton) were systematically ignored for the promotion of 'Newtonian' consistency and stability for ideological ends - the double meaning of 'order' is appropriate in this respect (for more detail, see Robert Markley, 'Representing Order: Natural Philosophy, Mathematics, and Theology in the Newtonian Revolution' in Hayles, ed. Chaos and Order, pp.125-148). The recognition of complexity, furthermore, suggests a shift from the individual to the collective, and from that of quantity to quality (Goodwin, 1997: 111; [unwittingly echoing Marx]). Brian Goodwin despite recognising the interrelationship of order and chaos, too easily equates this sense of uncertainty to a critique of modernity (1997: 114), assuming modernism to affirm determinism. This is rather too easy in equating chaos with the nonlinearity, fragmentation and discontinuity of post-structuralism (upgrading structuralism). He forgets plenty, when he describes the shift 'from the science of quantities that has characterised modernity, towards a science of qualities that is emerging in the post-modern era' (1997: 118; citing his book How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, 1994). Whereas my position (and I am not alone in this regard) is that modernity has always embraced uncertainty and its own critique, and should not necessarily to be seen as deterministic - dialectics is a case in point. Similarly, scientific method is both open and closed both embracing chance and determinism in a complex manner (according to Prigogine for instance). Owens explains this in dialectical terms - rather like reaching a point of synthesis that becomes a new thesis in endless reiteration. 'At a bifurcation point, chance takes over, and it is impossible to predict what will happen; but in between times, determinism takes over again, until fluctuations force the new system into far from equilibrium conditions and a new bifurcation point is reached.' (1996: 88) Note: 'bifurcation' means splitting, the point where within a system, one path or another must be followed. Although the choice is limited to one of two, the decision is thoroughly unpredictable. With increased frequency, bifurcations can lead to chaotic systems of course. Hence, bifurcation theory is a common explanation for how ordered structures can arise form disorder. In other words, bifurcation apparently synthesises order and disorder - '... as in the labyrinth, chaos is uncomprehended order' (Weissert, 1991: 240). Prigogine's idea of the 'creative void' reinforces a culturalist thinking (even if many scientists remain sceptical of its philosophical trajectory) and 'validates the dialectic between order and disorder by finding analogous processes in physical systems. Moreover, it posits an optimistic turn to such processes by positing them as sources of renewal...' (Hayles, 1991: 14). The synthesis of order and disorder allows for the unpacking of deterministic or totalising theories and the possibility of conceiving positive change (for instance and arguably, something deconstruction does not do as it is not dialectical and deemphasises order in favour of randomness. According to Owens, deconstruction is 'trapped in the very dualism it seeks to circumvent' 1996: 91). Ironically, scientific theories such as the ones mentioned previously have been used to develop anti-totalising theories whilst at the same time without recognising their totalising aspects. Hayles simply says: 'This interpretation of the new scientific paradigms ignores the fact that they have not renounced globalisation. [...] what makes it noteworthy is the discovery that despite the disorder, universal structures can still be discerned... the belief that the science of chaos opposes globalising theories is, then, a misapprehension about how these theories work.' (quoted in Owens, 1996: 90) Of course the same can be said of postmodernism itself - in that it became a totalising theory on the subject of anti-totalising theory. (Could the same criticism be levelled at the Network metaphor? I doubt it, as this is suitably complex and contradictory). Complex systems are dynamic, expressing change through the actions of variables, within a time-frame. However, it is also argued that the postmodern approach to the nature of time falls short in this respect. For instance, in the drive towards discrediting an upwards mode of Darwinian evolution, order privileged over disorder - survival of the fittest and all that). Put differently this has meant privileging the synchronic over the diachronic. Prigogine and Stengers provide a quite different model in which 'both entropy and evolution play a role: time is associated with randomness because only when a system behaves in a random way can past and future and irreversibility enter the picture; but irreversibility is also the source of order. While some systems run down, others evolve to a higher level of organisation.' (1996: 92) Time is cumulative and hierarchical - both synchronic and diachronic, scientific and discursive. If every attempt to provide an anti-totalising theory becomes a totalising theory in itself, the only solution is to accept mutability. One solution would be to see any antithetical mode is only effective as part of a chain of events of dialectical movement. Thus any anti-totalising theory would be a temporary state and only ever strategic. The simple logic of the whole is more than the sum of its parts is made manifestly evident. This is substantiated in terms of entropy as the measure of disorder, and 'concepts derived from the quantum mechanical definition of coherent states', in what Goodwin describes as a more holistic view (1997: 117). The metaphor is pervasive, and complexity theory has become commonplace as a means of understanding social and economic change, as well as evolution. Evolution follows this logic according to Laszlo (Ervin Laszlo, Evolution: the Grand Synthesis, Boston: Shambhala 1987): 'This is how evolution seems to work: in 'chaotic' evolutionary theory, a bifurcation point produces a higher and more complex level of existence or unwelt which eventually destabilises itself from within by what amounts to redundant amplification of its founding premises until a new phase of chaotic fluctuation leads to its being superceded in its turn' (Owen, 1996: 93) The Darwinian perspective on evolution is inadequate in this regard. It does not sufficiently account for the ways in which different species adapt to their environments (Note: an orthodox view is that through competition between organisms, only the 'fittest' survive and produce offspring). Equally misleading and apolitical is the alternative view that: 'species go extinct not because of bad genes but because of bad luck' (David Raup in Extinction, quoted in Goodwin, 1997: 116). Furthermore, it makes an unacceptable political metaphor of course (of the inevitability and naturalness of free trade, open competition and market forces where the rich get richer and so on). Engels puts this neatly: 'Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind, and especially on his countrymen, when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom' (1980: 351). There is some danger is making too close a connection between scientific results and social programs (Hayles, 1991: 15) - too often cultural programmes are simply validated by spurious science. Chaos theory clearly cannot be simply limited to its technical aspects, and has been aggressively been applied as metaphor and analogy. But the correspondence between culture and science is not merely metaphorical or analogical - I am reminded of the truism by Dick Hebdige that even metaphors have real effects (ref?). What stands for what (in the enactment of metaphor) is only one of the further problems in the use of such an overused concept that aims to disrupt the ordered production of meaning? Does metaphor express order and disorder too? Chaos theory is being used to legitimate and illegitimate various ideas, as thus enters the cultural and generative matrix of ideology, in excess of metaphor. Political and creative processes in the most general sense contain unpredictable elements because they are complex by nature and open to outside influence. In such a way it is possible to rise above base instinctive behaviour. By extension (not extinction), the individual success or failure of creative types (artists, not least) is accounted for by luck and circumstance (not good breeding as such but class issues are clearly relevant). Contradiction between parts is required for the complex whole to adequately describe the ways in which these parts express both disorder and order (and is thus one of the essential functions of life itself). Thus fragmentation is rejected for an 'ordered complexity' that is neither ordered nor random. Along these lines of thinking and in general terms, orthodox postmodernism (deconstruction, post-structuralism et al) rest on 'bad science' and 'bad history' (Owens, 1996: 94); and bad politics. Take for example, the fractured human subject: on the one hand being a critique of bourgeois autonomy and yet entirely without agency. Surely, people and things are more complex, dynamic and self-organising. The reality we experience is decidedly more complex. chaos and marxist theory 'Like chaos theory, the negation of negation is not just a metaphor, but a description of a pattern of change' (Owens, 1996: 103). In developing dialectical thinking from Hegel's idealism, Marx rejects the absolute subject ('the idea' - see quote where Marx argues that what he is doing is the exact opposite of Hegel) to embrace 'the causal relations within and between historically emergent, developing humanity and irreducibly real, but modifiable nature' (Owens, 1996: 99, quoting Bhasker's 'Reclaiming Reality'). In doing this, there are obvious parallels to chaos theory in the interconnectedness of things and the recognition of the importance of the influence of external conditions on any perspective. Crucially this interconnects the economy with the natural and social realm - and that these realms are governed by the same dialectical laws (incidentally it is whether these laws extend to the natural realm that chaos theory perhaps confirms). In other words, no part of the system can be falsely separated from its interconnection to the whole system (can I find a quote to confirm this?); the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Trotsky says 'We call our dialectic, materialist, since its roots are neither in heaven nor in the depths of our own 'free will', but in objective reality, in nature.' (quoted in Owens, 1996: 106) Engels in 'Introduction to Dialectics of Nature' (1980) outlines the defining characteristics of the dialectical laws of motion. Crucial to the legitimisation of this was the emancipation of natural science from theology; he charts the development of thinking to emphasise the point: '... the Arabs had left behind the decimal notation, the beginnings of algebra, the modern numerals, and alchemy; the Christian Middles Ages nothing at all' (1980: 340). He describes science locked into a theological logic of the 'absolute immutability of nature', planets circling, stars fixed, kept in place by 'universal gravitation' (1980: 341). For instance, Newton posited universal gravitation as an essential property of matter, its tangental force giving rise to the orbits of planets. How these things came into being in the first place were simply explained by divine creation. In contrast to this 'petrified outlook on nature' materialists attempted to 'explain the world from the world itself' (1980: 342-3). Kant's 'General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) suggested that the solar system had 'become' in the course of time, in turn the earth had become, and as a result its history therefore must be 'not only of co-existence in space but also of succession in time' (1980: 343). Nature comes into being and come out of being. It transforms itself as part of the overall process of repeated acts of creation rather than one single original source of creation. Around the same time, similar attacks were veiled in the fields of botany and zoology proclaiming theories of descent of organisms (firstly Wolff in 1759 according to Engels, later and more notoriously through Darwin in 1859). Similarly in the study of Physics, Descartes' view that that laws of motion were fixed was replaced with a view that matter existed in motion in an eternal cycle. Echoing the sentiment of 'all that is solid melts into air' (The Communist Manifesto), Engels summarises these tendencies as, 'all rigidity was dissolved, all fixity dissipated, all particularity that had been regarded as eternal became transient, the whole of nature shown as moving in eternal flux and cycles. [...] All nature [...] from protista [note: unicellular and cellularless protozoa] to man, has its existence in eternal coming into being and going out of being, in ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change' (1980: 346) 'It is an eternal cycle in which matter moves [...] nothing [even the concept of nothing] is eternal but eternally changing, eternally moving matter and the laws according to which it moves and changes.' (1980: 353) [Generally, engels's view of the dialectics of nature is regarded as rather crude] What had been once intuition, had been proved in clearer form, for Engels, through empirical proof (although remember, scientific evidence is not fixed either but in motion). Nature arises from differentiation, from the single cell through to complicated organisms, and does so historically. This is crucial to Engels, not only to explain the human distinction from apes, and the development of language, but more in terms of the defining characteristic of human labour - the essay 'The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man' written in 1876, provides more detail on this (1980: 354-364). He continues [writing in 1875-6]: 'Even the steam engine, so far his most powerful tool for the transformation of nature, depends, because it is a tool, in the last resort on the hand.' (1980: 349) And in turn, the hand is linked to the brain, and consciousness of the laws of motion themselves with which change can be influenced. It follows that dialectics is no simply dualistic notion but the idea that opposites interact in contradiction: 'Old dualisms give way to new ideas of interaction and synthesis: either/or; order/chaos; change/stasis; mechanism/flux; determinism/existentialism; mind/matter; theory/practice; positive/negative; science/humanities; cause/effect; life/death. [...] Synthesis is not merging or the wiping of difference. Instead there is a fruitful tension between the two, a meaningful contradiction'. (Owens, 1996: 100-1). Herein lies the impetus for change, and in the case of Marxism between the contradictions between the means and relations of production. As a model of generative processes, it offers a counter-argument to causal relations, such as a straightforward linear movement between cause and effect. A minute change might have massive consequences - like making a mistake on the production line (John Latham's proposal for British Leyland comes to mind, where for each worker was required to make a mistake). Similarly 'chaotic systems have a kind of harmony, but it is neither static nor complete. For chaos theory it is disequilibrium which produces change' (Owens, 1996: 101). Both express the possibility of development and improvement in the system and embrace the concept of progress. Each new stage of development is an improved and synthesised version of the previous stage, in the continuing cycle of progress (although the possibilities for negative change are just as likely). All the same, a general rule applies: 'Complex adaptive systems function best when they combine order and chaos in appropriate measure' (Goodwin: 1997: 115). Owens quotes Prigogine (again from Order out of Chaos) in saying: ' being and becoming are not to be opposed one to the other: they express two related aspects of reality' (1996: 102). Similarly, she cites the many transformations of quantity into quality (evident not least in Capital) as indicative of the belief in the possibilities of positive change. Thus, she draws a parallel between the revolutionary moment and the bifurcation point as the point where dramatic change takes place. (note: Similarly, Goodwin cites the work of Parkard and Langton on the dynamic behaviour of cellular automata, in identifying 'the edge of chaos' (1997: 115). It is here that order and chaos are combined so that change can take place.) But this patterning does not stop there for it to operate dialectically, but needs continual improvement so as to not stagnate (thus Stalinism is accounted for its lack of open-endedness, as it wrongly assumed the dialectical process to have ended, and closed it down). On the contrary, every new synthesis should become a new thesis and so progress is not stopped short, and thus resists 'premature closure and false totalities' (Owens, 1996: 104). My contention is that dialectics continues to remain a useful conception and model of change to describe systems that appear to contain the same logic. Whether it is a law of nature seems debatable (how could this is proved either way?) but chaos theory at least appears to imply this productively drawing together thinking about the interconnections of nature, history, society, technology and politics. Furthermore, Marxism would suggest that human subjects are constituted through their relationship to society and institutions, and that society cannot be described simply as a collection of individual subjects but is a far more complex system that takes account of individual differences but also of collective actions. (link to the network society). Even for Bhasker, 'for emancipation to be possible. Knowable emergent laws must operate' (from Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, quoted in Goodwin, 1997: 121). This approach provides the possibility of change through collective human agency - at the point of bifurcation or revolution. This is a forceful argument but clearly one not without its difficulties. Prigogine, for instance, thinks that dialectical materialism despite its undoubted similarities to the new science is too extreme in its rejection of determinism (in Order Out of Chaos, p.252-3). However, this is a misunderstanding of dialectics that does not see everything as fluid and in flux but simply more so than conventional deterministic systems (Owens, 1996: 105 - she says Newtonian systems). On the other hand, many critics of Marxism see it as simply too mechanistic, but this fails to take proper account of the dialectical method (for instance, Althusser operating in the euro-marxist tradition tried to distance the mature Marx from Engels and dialectics). There are a number of examples of the ways in which in practice, Marxism has sought to separate dialectics from materialism: remaining in impoverished form under Stalinism, or by focusing on contradiction through Maoism (Owens cites Mao's On Contradiction). Luk‡cs, on the other hand, in History and Class Consciousness, deemphasies the application of the dialectic to the natural realm, seeing it applicable only to the social and conceptual realms. Along with Gramsci, this is a popular point of emphasis in focusing the dialectic away form the contradiction inherent in nature and introducing the contradiction between reality and the will of the subject (the revolutionary perhaps). I think it is possible to draw from both positions but it is worth emphasising that dialectics challenges the pessimism of much contemporary critical theory (under the influence of post-modern thinking). By its inherent method, it offers the possibility of transformation coexisting with a tight structural framework - it is both a paradigm shift and an old discredited paradigm in itself: it encapsulates the idea of orderly disorder wherein positive change remains a possibility.