Chaos Theory

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Chaos Theory, with its notions of bifurcation points, fractals, limit cycles, strange attractors, self-organization, solitons, autopoesis and the butterfly effect, has become a powerful metaphor over the last two decades. The theory has been applied to everything from the physics and biology to weather, stock market, earthquakes, population size, spread of disease, linguistics, elementary particles, psychological states, etc and has even crept into films and novels! It is difficult to find a field today to which Chaos Theory has not been applied, and in a range of uses from loose metaphors to strict calculations.

Chaos theory is a branch of non-linear science that deals with relatively complex open systems, and systems that are displaced from stable equilibrium by means of a flow of energy, matter, information or, for example, money. In this the boundaries of Chaos Theory merge with those of Systems Theory, Complexity Theory, Rene Thom's Catastrophe Theory.

Has Chaos Theory become overexposed? Are its metaphor's always been applied correctly? Does it promise more than it finally delivers? Probably it's too early to tell. At all events Peat has contributed, with essays and co-authored books, to the "sound and fury" surrounding Chaos Theory.

CONFERENCE AT PARI, ITALY 18-21 MARCH, 2000
Chaos Theory and the Arts in the Context of Social, Economic and Organisational Development

Books:
Seven Life Lessons of Chaos
Turbulent Mirror

Related Pages: | Synchronicity |

Essays:
Chaos: The Geometrization of Thought
Comment on Chaos
Nature Morte: Inscape, Perception and Thought
Non-Linear Dynamics (Chaos Theory) and its Implications for Policy Planning

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