Chaos as a heuristic for learning

Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics that studies systems that seem to be chaotic or random, but which actually have underlying patterns and rules that govern their behaviour. These systems can be highly sensitive to initial conditions, meaning that small changes can have a big impact on their behavior over time. I was trying to explain to a friend that learning randomly can be rewarding, and I used chaos theory as an example to argue that there is value in learning about a wide range of subjects, rather than just focusing on a specific area of study.

“Imagine you want to build a universe, but you don’t have any plans or blueprint to follow. You have no prior experience or education in universe creation, so you decide to create a simple blueprint called “Effective universe creation version 1” to guide you. This blueprint will help you to plan and execute the creation of your universe, even though you have no prior experience in this field. It goes like this:

a. A universe needs solar systems.

b. A solar system can have infinite elements in them (i.e Elements being planets, moons, stars, black holes, white holes).

c. Each element can have an infinite amount of power source (i.e the sun).

d. Each element have a finite amount of resources.

e. A resource needs rules governing them. So you come up with something similar to chemistry. A simple language that easily translates what a resource is, creating rules on how resources are made up.

We haven’t mentioned biological and physical systems.

f. As you continue building your universe, you realize that you need to establish rules for how different elements will interact with each other. You may ask yourself questions such as “What prevents an element from interacting with the power sources or affecting other elements?” These questions arise because you still don’t know exactly what each element will be or what its characteristics will be.

Upon reflection, you realize that it is not feasible to create rules for every single event or entity in your universe. As a result, you decide to pursue a different approach in order to streamline the creation process. You decide to design experiments and establish rules that govern each of these experiments in order to build a more efficient and effective universe.

I think I’ve got it!

Subatomic particles! an idea pops up in your head, you realize you could actually start by creating particles that are not made from other particles, to serve as the building blocks for events or entities.

Furthermore, you created fundamental forces on how each of these particles interacts with each other.

Using your “universe creation abilities”, you create subatomic particles and each fundamental force that govern them, leaving them to interact based on these rules allowing randomness to take its course.

Two days later, you observe something you would later call an atom, You have molecules after a week, a month? you get an element.

This is chaos, and it has been the sole reason we have been able to innovate. The idea that you can design thought processes or experiments and create rules to govern how they should work solely relies on chaos. This process is what I like to call the chaos method.

Chaos Method as a heuristic

The chaos method fundamentally creates smaller experiments around a particular subject and creates rules that govern each experiment, then using random events that would likely occur to discover or learn about the subject and record each observation.

An example would be learning mathematics, the best way here obviously would be to go to college. But you can’t afford college and you want to learn mathematics cause you are very passionate about it, you proceed to create two experiments to help you learn;

1. Buy books and set reminders on what time you want to study.
2. Subscribe to math-oriented YouTube channels, so you have autosuggestion of videos relating to mathematical content.
3. Find a conjecture, then proceed to solve it

All of these learning experiments are superb, the first two options are called inactive learning. The third one is where the chaos method would be the most useful. The end goal drives your learning, you subconsciously learn about different domains in math while arriving at a solution.

Solving a conjecture concerning topology as an example would require knowledge about abstract algebra, set theory, analysis and calculus. etc.

Heuristics are not silver bullets to every problem, In this case, it might not be the optimal solution, like all heuristics, it is a practical method that is not guaranteed to be perfect, but it’s sufficient for reaching a short term goal.