CHAOS AND GAIA

Thus begins the main narrative of the Theogony of Hesiod, as it appears in an original Greek text published in 1570 by Ioannis Crispini. My own translation of that passage and of the next fifteen lines is as follows:

The primal position of Chaos - "first of all" - will be treated in greater length in the next paper in this series, 'Chaos and Cosmos', in this presentation I wish to concentrate on the relationship with Gaia, Hesiod's sentient, self-loving, fornicating Earth Mother.

Who was this Hesiod character? Where did he get these obscene ideas of the beginning of all things occurring in some bout of cosmic incest? Unlike most Greek poets of his period, the 8th Century BC, he tells us something about himself: in the pre-amble to his "Theogonia", the hexameter epic from which the above passage is quoted. Hesiod lived in Boeotia on mainland Greece where his folks had migrated from the Aolian settlement of Cyme on the coast of modem Turkey. He claims that he was tending sheep on the lower slopes of Mount Helicon when he heard the Muses speaking to him. These are exotic entities of artistic inspiration (generally depicted as female and of pleasing aspect and scant clothing) who traditionally cavorted across the same tract of countryside. They gave him a wand of Bay wood, which endowed him with poetic skills, and told him to sing about the family of Gods. So the supposed source of the Theogony was effectively divine or quasi-divine inspiration.

It is doubtless a complete co-incidence that the material Hesiod presents appears to be a synthesis of a selection of Sumerian, Hittite and Babylonian myths. Indeed there are elements in his work which can be traced back for a further 2000 years in the corpus of Sumerian 'wisdom poetry'.

It is certain that throughout the Classical period Hesiod's Theogony was regarded as the standard account of the origin of things. It was eventually replaced by the Judeo/Christian Genesis story with the monotheist seven-day-wonder JHVH, and the guilty gardeners, Adam and Eve. That story of course emanates from quasi-divine Mosaic sources, and continues to be given equal treatment with the rational explanations of classical geology and old (pre-Chaos) physics in schools in some states of the USA and elsewhere.

The idea of the whole planet Earth as a sentient living being is thus a very old concept. It was revived by a British chemist, James Lovelock, and an American biologist, Lynn Margulis. Their Gaia Hypothesis was outlined, controversially and in detail, in Lovelock's book 'Gaia: A new look at Life on Earth' (1979).

In Lovelock's words the Gaia Hypothesis presents "a new insight into the inter-reactions between the living and the inorganic parts of the planet. From this has arisen the hypothesis, the model, in which the Earth's living matter, air, oceans, and land surface form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life."

LIFE AND CHAOS IN THE PRIMORDIAL SOUP

In its most primitive form 'life' is nothing more than a molecular assemblage of chemical elements which has the ability of being able to regulate and reproduce itself. In the sense that we understand 'life' on this planet, such molecular assemblages appear exclusively to be of the form of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA, which consists of long chains of relatively simple carbon based (organic) molecules called 'nucleotides'.

The nucleotides string themselves together like beads, each joined to its neighbours with a relatively strong chemical link known as a Covalent Bond. Two of these strands can then join together along their length with a series of relatively weak chemical links known as Hydrogen Bonds. The overall structure is a DNA molecule, and these form into the double-helix morphism which was first described by British bio-physicists Francis Crick and James Watson; for which work they won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962. The ordering of the nucleotides along the strands forms a pattern which is termed the DNA code.

When DNA reproduces it effectively un-zips along the sequence of hydrogen bonds linking the two strands, and each strand then collects up free nucleotide molecules, or clumps of them, which match those in the existing structure according to well understood and quite mechanical rules, and the result is two identical DNA molecules where previously there was one.

The DNA molecules pertaining to advanced life-forms are extremely complex, consisting of millions of nucleotides; it is estimated that the DNA in each cell of a human being would measure more than two metres if stretched out. That sort of complexity has, of course, developed over the millions of years of geological time, but simple DNA molecules appear to come into existence quite spontaneously. Given that simple life forms can evolve by mutation over sufficient time into more complicated ones, I would submit that the origin of life is no very special event, and I would suggest that it is going on all over the planet right now.

At the level of very simple marine organisms, recent sattelite pictures published in New Scientist show seasonal oceanic blooms of microscopic cellular structures known as phyto-plankton. In his accompanying article M R Lewis (Prof of Oceanography at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia) describes how these structures come into being as a result of nothing more than the photosynthetic action of sunlight on seawater. Something similar appears to be happening during the summer in London's reservoirs, where the pollution from over-use of agricultural fertilizers seems to be creating a 'primordial soup' where spontaneous growths of weird algae can occur. Something similar has occurred in the Adriatic Sea recently in the vicinity of the highly polluted outfall of the River Po.

Sunlight may speed the process, but it does not seem to be essential. Around sulphurous hot spouts on the floor of the deep oceans strange creatures thrive which seem to need neither light nor plentiful oxygen; heat and a rich cocktail of chemical elements from the volcanic vents they frequent appear to be enough to get the life process going.

On another level, strange viruses, which are effectively nothing more than balls of DNA, appear to manifest spontaneously, and in some cases can be remarkably successful at self replication. As an example I would suggest the various Human Immuno-deficiency Viruses (HIV), some or all of which are thought to cause AIDS.

Some would see the all-pervasive hand of a creator entity at work here. I submit that what is involved is nothing more than the inevitability of what happens when Chaos Mathematics applies it's coincidence shaping processes to some rich mixture of chemicals: such as that which exists in sea-water, in London's reservoirs, round ocean floor vents, or even in the air we breathe. On this basis I would accept the probability of some sort of life on other planets, even on ones which appear to be totally inhospitable to conventional terrestrial life forms.

OF SYSTEMS, LIFE AND TERMITES

If life itself is viewed as a self-replicating self-regulating system, then there is clearly self-similarity on different scales between, say, human life and that of the most primitive self replicating life-forms, and again between the most complex manifestation of self-replicating DNA and the simplest, which might consist of only a few hundred nucleotides. Where self-similarity across different scales exists, by definition we are treating with a fractal phenomenon, and we should therefore be alert for the existence of features which can be described in terms of non-linear dynamics or Chaos Mathematics.

Lifeforms are systemic in character. That is they comprise a number of elements, each of which has some specialised function to perform in allowing the lifeform to perpetuate, regulate and reproduce itself. In this context, just as a single DNA molecule can be regarded as a lifeform, so can the cell of which it forms the nucleus; so can the entity or corpus made up by the cells; and so also, in my submission, can a community structure made by a large number of individual lifeforms living in close proximity.

Thus an entire termite mound can be viewed as a lifeform falling within the system model. It perpetuates itself by supporting cadres of termites with different physical and functional characteristics. It regulates itself with orders being sent out from and messages being received by a central queen, who communicates using chemical signals, and who breeds more troops for any cadre with a termite-power shortfall. It reproduces itself when a termite destined to be a new queen takes to the wing with an army of youthful companions to start a new nest.

A termite mound functions systemically in the same sort of primitive way as does a totalitarian community or heirarchy or state. Everything goes along fine as long as the queen keeps breeding, as long as the chemical cyber messages keep getting through, and as long as the whole structure isn't ruined by a flash flood. It can even cope with the occasional aardvark attack. Not only do termite mounds illustrate the concept of a lifeform with an existence and intelligence discrete from and superior to that of the individuals who make it up, they also form the central focus of an inter-dependent wider ecosystem in which the aardvarks are also a component. The discrete superior intelligence associated with the termite mound has many of the characteristics of the class of abstract or metaphysical entity known as an Egregor.

Extending this systemic model of lifeform organisation, small ecosystems are easy to picture as a termite-mound-style entity. A particular orchid with a peculiar shaped flower depends for pollination on a humming bird with specialised mouth parts which can feed off nothing else. One cannot exist without the other. Both elements, the orchid and the humming-bird, are part of the same life form in systemic terms.

At this point the non-linear Chaos model for fluctuation of populations becomes important. The principles are intelligibly set out in a New Scientist Article "The Chaotic Rhythms of Life" by Robert May, Royal Society Research Professor in Zoology at the University of Oxford.

Fluctuations in the Orchid/humming-bird life system may occur in the following manner:

If there is a climatically favourable season and orchids are particularly prolific, then the population of humming-birds will be well fed and an increased survival rate will mean more adult birds in the following season. By that time there may be fewer orchids, perhaps for climatic reasons, and the humming-bird population will decline. The linkages are not direct; there are no chemical signals, as in the termite mound, sent from the orchid to tell the humming-birds to breed more furiously to account for an increased pollination requirement. Force majeure, in the shape of a larger controlling system, like the prevailing weather, takes a hand, and the observed effects are determined by the influence of coincidences from the Chaos Matrix (or survival of the fittest) on the dependent sub-system.

A larger eco-system, such as a rainforest, comprising many different species, plants, animals and humans, may also have systemic relationships which are chaotically related. Try visualising a large rainforest as a self-perpetuating, self-regulating lifeform; it can even contribute to its own climatic regime. By looking at things in this way, a pond can be viewed as a self-perpetuating lifeform, algae and all; so can a river; so can a sea; so can an ocean.

Having expanded the concept to this point it is easy to see that the relationships between the oceans, the atmosphere, the rainforests and climatic conditions on the planet generally are modelled by the same Chaos Functions which can be so useful elsewhere, and the hypothesis that the planet itself may have an existence as an independent self-regulating lifeform does not seem so far fetched.

This is exactly what the Gaia Hypothesis of Dr Lovelock sets out to demonstrate. The classical Gaia of Hesiod is a sentient planet, and also a cosmological and theurgical entity; although the latter aspect tends to be played down by the Hypothesists, struggling still after more than a decade, as they must, to gain academic acceptance of a concept which sounds well whacky at the first presentation.

ISOMORPHS, SUBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVE REALITY AND THE MANDLEBROT SET

It may be useful at this point to introduce the mathematical concept of isomorphism. Collins English Dictionary defines the term as follows:

A one to one correspondence between the elements of two or more sets.

As an example they quote the isomorphism between the set of Roman numerals and our conventional Arabic numerals. I would like to extend the definition to include correspondences between real systems and their instrumentation and/or systems models. I would include the relationship between a motor vehicle's petrol tank and it's fuel guage as an isomorph; this is valid in the sense that one can use the guage to make judgements and predictions about the state of the contents of the fuel tank, if not necessarily about the state of the tank itself.

I would further include the notion of there being an isomorphic relationship between a precise systems map or flowchart and an ideal computer program (that would be a bug-free one, sometimes thought to be unattainable using the intricacies of Godelian reasoning).

On another level, there might be said to be an isomorphism between subjective/objective reality and some or all of the cosmic maps of various mystic traditions. A cabbalist, for example, might argue that the Tree of Life contains all that needs to be known about the structure of the universe and the relationships which hold it together.

I would like to examine to what extent the Mandlebrot Set might be considered to present an equally valid model of the universe.

I have no intention of attempting to prove an isomorphism involving the Mandlebrot Set, but I would like to consider some of it's key features:

1. The Mandlebrot is constructed on a Real axis and an Imaginary axis; while the universe in general can be considered as having a component rooted in physical reality and a non-physical or abstract component.
2. The Mandlebrot Set, despite it's complexity, can be proved to be connected (Peitgen & Richter; 'The Beauty of Fractals'); and the boundary between the regions which iterate to 0 and the other points on the complex plane, which iterate to finite or infinite quantities, can be proved to be continuous. In terms of the real universe, this could be interpreted as suggesting that all of the sub-atomic particles which are in existence have at some time been in contact. This is indeed one of the more bizarre conclusions of attempts to reconcile Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
3. The Mandlebrot Set is symmetrical about the real axis, thus every point on it's boundary has a twin. Any influence, described by a mathematical transformation applied to the Set, which initiates a change in any given boundary point might be expected to exert a simultaneous influence on that point's twin. In objective reality this would suggest that it is possible, by initiating some change of state to a given particle in the universe, to simultaneously force an identical change of state to some other particle which need not be local to the event. This is indeed one of the more bizarre conclusions of Quantum Mechanics.

The apparent conceptual validity of non-local quantum effects has given rise to speculation as to whether information can travel instantaneously in the universe. I would suggest that the Mandlebrot Set provides a model for examining such possibilities. If one considers the central Zero tending regions of the Set as pertaining to imagination, intellect and perception, then the regions which tend to absolute or infinite quantities will conversely pertain to physical reality. The boundary between the two regions contains within its complexity the familiar forms (or morphic resonances) of the natural world. These are blended with the fantastic landscapes and vistas of transcendental reality. Not only are swirling galactic images presented, but also, with continuous magnification, models which resemble a cruise along an 'un-zipping' DNA molecule, or descent into a black hole. The Mandlebrot Set itself seems to contain diagrams and models presenting some of the characteristics of lifeforms. The fractal self-similarity is revealed in the infinite number of tiny Mandlebrot replicas in the fine and magnified structure of the boundary region, and each and every one of these is joined by filaments back to the central Zero void; this must be the case since the Mandlebrot can be proved to be a connected set of points.

In this respect it appears as if the abstract component, or Egregor, of all lifeforms might be seen as having some linkage with a supernumary abstract intelligence. In this respect the Mandlebrot Set might be seen as providing a mathematically derived representation of Jung's concepts of a collective unconscious.

Within the Mandlebrot Set, the mathematical rigidities of it's construction suggest that any change initiated in any microscopic sub-region of the Set will result in transformations of points throughout the matrix. These will be for the most part too infinitesimal to be noticed, but occasionally, by the processes of Chaos, they will be magnified into some transformation significantly larger than the perturbation which started the process. By this linkage the 'Butterfly Effect' beloved of Chaos Mathematicians can be accomodated into the model. So also can the Magicians concept that every information bearing gesture or act of will under gnosis can exert an effect, however slight, on every other particle in the universe.

The sort of image of Gaia which emerges is of a planetary scale Egregor with dependent subsystems sharing in some collective, if unacknowledged, linkage of consciousness; with this planetary entity itself having some tentative link to a larger galactic Egregor; which is itself part of some Egregor of the Universe, which is itself part of ... ???

If this starts to sound monotheistic, I make no apology. The model admits monotheism as well as polytheism, and there is no mathematical objection to some all-supernal monotheist concept, provided that the concept is constructed to be compatible with the Philosophical Axiom which derives from Godelian reasoning: ''there can be no ultimate truth ".

THE NATURE OF INFORMATION

Information technologists conventionally recognise two classes of information - Data and Instructions. I would like to introduce a third class: Systems structure control information; let's designate information packages conforming to this description as 'Cyber-morphs'.

The principal difference between a cyber-morph and data/instruction information is that while data and instructions always relate directly to some physical reality, cyber-morphs relate essentially to the abstract systems framework within which those data and instructions have meaning and/or validity.

To refer back to the example of Agrippa's magic squares, used previously to illustrate the concept of Mathesis, the sequence of natural counting numbers represents the data; the rules for arranging them in a particular pattem within an individual square's matrix represent the instructions; but the rich intemal structure of horizontal, vertical and diagonal summing equivalence represents the cyber-morph. The same cyber-morph extends across the sequence of matrices of different sizes (or dimensions), and it is that which imbues each of the devices with some perceived magical quality.

Because Data and Instructions have some real dimension (in mathematical terms as well as in the sense of a level of meaning and existence), they have time dependency in terms of their transmission and processing. These information classes are thus ideally transmitted at light-speed using electro-magnetic travelling waves, either through the earth's magnetosphere (or magnetic field) or along copper wires, or in electromagnetic beams via geostationary sattelites. The equations which model such transmission procedures are graphically displayed using real, imaginary and time axes.

I would argue that a cyber-morph, in contrast, belongs to a class of information which is not dependent on time. A familiar example of the concept of a cyber-morph (borrowed from Peter Carroll) is 'Kingship'. Everyone understands what the job description involves, nowadays it tends to be constitutionally diluted, but the basic concept is unchanged. Kingship travels from one incumbent to the next instantaneously: "The King is dead long live the King". What is transferred is an abstract information package comprising system structure and control - i.e. a cyber-morph.

The smallest cyber-morph in present perception is probably the spin parameter which is defined as a variable for most sub-atomic particles. It does not affect the mass or energy of the panicle, but it is a vital component in determining the structural role which the particle adopts. It is this quality for which Quantum Mechanics and Relativity predict instantaneous transmission in non-local quantum events. The Mandlebrot set has no time axis, and so such events can be modelled as instantaneous reflections about the real axis, and I would suggest that any cyber-morph information has the property of being transferred around the Zero tending region of the Mandlebrot independently of time.

The crux of it is that one must be dealing with systems structure and control information rather than 'real' oriented data and instructions. I would suggest that magic works this way, and that it is most effective if one is attempting to apply some cyber-morphic technique, rather than confining one's sorcerous endeavours to the domain of data and instructions alone. This is why sigilisation is found to be effective, and why material based "lust after result" can inhibit the result being attained.

A relatively important cyber-morph is the wide concept of life itself. This is essentially a package of system structure and control information which permits the lifeform to function. It may be useful to visualise an individual life cyber-morph as some small subsystem of a collective unconscious represented by the next self-similar Mandlebrot up the scale. In animals and plants the life cyber-morph is transmitted in the DNA code, but in the course of spontaneous manifestation of life it falls out of the Chaos Mathematics inherent in the way in which DNA type molecules structure themselves.

There is no particular reason to suppose that DNA is the only type of molecule in the entire universe which adopts a structure incorporating its own system control information, but as far as science is aware it seems to be the only one. One might suppose that silicon, which has a similar chemistry to carbon in some respects, might be able to construct such compounds; but the peculiar structural capabilities of DNA stem in part from the 36 degree twist between each nudeotide and the next along a strand, and that in turn is a function of the spin fields of the particles making up the nudeotide molecules. Silicon simply can't get the twist right; at least not in this part of the universe. The key to a serious sentient computer would be to develop some sort of silicon compound, perhaps with a specially constructed isotope, which allowed the correct molecular twisting for cyber-morph information to incorporate itself in the structure. That is the stuff of science fiction at the time of writing, but with the right isotope discovered it could quickly become a reality in my view.

As well as Kingship, life and particle spin fields, I would suggest that all metaphysical entities and egregors encapsulate the qualities of the cyber-morphic information class; together with such phenomena as the Morphic or Morphogenetic Fields described by Dr Rupert Sheldrake.

Can an entity like a planet be endowed with some all embracing cyber-morphic life quality? It depends really on the conditions and whether the materials available are capable of arranging themselves in the Chaos of things, such that any level of life can spontaneously occur. On a planet where conditions were such that the dominant isotope of silicon had the property of being able to construct DNA type molecules, it would be no surprise to find silicon lifeforms, and an environment which self-regulated to keep things cosy for silicon based life forms. On this planet we have carbon based lifeforms and an analogous situation appears to exist.

GAIA - EARTH, WATER, AIR AND MAGNETOSPHERE

The product of some four billion years of random fracturing of a cooling mass of heavy elements. That is the nature of the ground we tread on. Boundary regions are always interesting, and the boundary between the mass of heavy elements and the water and gas envelopes surrounding the planet is where most of the life activity goes on.

Reaching out far beyond the atmosphere and into the plasma which permeates the whole of the Solar System is the Earth's Magnetosphere. It is my view that in any conception of Gaia, this region, experienced at ground level as the Earth's magnetic field, should be included. Aside from the importance of the magnetosphere in influencing atmospheric weather, and hence the living conditions for most of the lifeforms and ecosystems on the planet's surface, it is an important conduit for transmission of information in the form of data and instructions. My suggestion is that it may also provide a propagation channel for transmission of cyber-morphic information, for the reason that it exhibits the same non-linear dynamic properties as the other regions of Gaia which only be comprehensively modelled by use of Chaos Mathematics.

The magnetosphere is the channel through which any influence exerted by other bodies in the solar system would be most directly experienced by Gaia, it is also the channel through which the Earth can exert a corresponding influence on that wider system. The linkages, as always, are by means of the Chao-dynamics inherent in natural systems in both the real and imaginary worlds which our collective intelligence perceives that we inhabit.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: