620. The Random Nature of the Universe

Randomness. Stay with me here. I know some of you like organized thought, organized writing. The traditional way we were all taught in school to write. Yeah, I wrote those papers, the golden rule of clarity and conciseness. That does make for good writing, however this universe is a pretty random place. Or is it?

There’s chaos theory. Randomness in nature. There was this British mathematician, Alan Turing. In the 50’s he did some thinking, experimenting. You know the stuff British mathematicians do. He be smart. The gist of what he came up with, without using all the fancy words, was that if the universe is random, how do you explain patterns that emerge in nature? How can you explain animal fur that if truly random, wouldn’t come out in the beautiful patterns it does? Basically the theory is that cells influence other cells around them. And patterns emerge. That’s it. Interesting. If you are the type that enjoys reading such things, here’s the article from Wired.

That’s the pictures above, cells with dye in them. Pretty cool, right?

So how is randomness in the universe a good thing? We all have things that occur in life that we assign meaning to. If you believe the universe is ruled by chaos, truly random, that’s an uncomfortable place to be. Our brains need some form of organization to try to understand why things happen to us the way they do. Did I do something to deserve this fate?

For some the concept of God, a benevolent higher spirit that is looking out for us is comforting. But what happens when bad things and suffering occur? What then?

The truth is, I don’t know. Sometimes things occur that seem to be too purposeful, to fateful. It’s comforting to think those things happen for a reason. What’s the good thing here: random acts of kindness. Now that’s something we could all use. It’s a movement that post-apocalyptic-coming out of quarantine funk-getting used to a new normal… is much needed. Be kind to a random stranger today. Give it a shot. It will make at least two people feel much better, you and that stranger.