A. J. Vidgop and I. Fouxon
An analogy of the behavior of animate and inanimate objects in a complex chaotic system.
Summary
Chaos is usually presented to us as the absence of regularities and cause-and-effect relationships. That is, as a set of unrelated random events, not organized into any system: a sign fell down, the phone rang, the price of gold went up.
The same category of randomness would seem to include the course of human life – a multitude of unrelated events affect our destinies, often determining them.
In this connection, the study of Jewish family histories conducted by the Am HaZikaron Institute, which is a study of the fates of a number of people connected by family ties, is extremely interesting.
The analysis of reconstructed histories and fates revealed a number of violations of random distribution of facts, indicating some predetermination or partial determinism. This applied not only to the events that happened to people, but also to the characteristics and qualities of clan members. It turned out that belonging to one or another clan correlated these manifestations. Moreover, members of one clan were often hundreds of years apart.
These “abnormal correlations” manifested themselves in the members of the groups under consideration as certain innate preferences in a whole range of principal matters (both physical, social and psychological) corresponding to the kinship group to which they belonged. The same was true of their fates. At the same time, fates, behavior and characteristics turned out to be unique for members of each of the numerous family groups (clans).
This observation was developed into the initial principles of the “metaclans theory” outlined below.
To put it another way, an attempt was made to consider each individual as a particle in chaos, and the genus as a complex system uniting these particles. Both the system and the particles, in this case, demonstrated non-random behavior.
Simultaneously with the creation of the theory of metaclans, the institute also built a physical and mathematical model to study the behavior of inanimate particles. To our surprise it turned out that the inanimate world is also characterized by certain inherent preferences. Thus, it turns out that all inanimate participants of a chaotic system, “tend to choose” one or another “life line” or trajectory.
In particular, within the developed model, the particle exhibited a kind of preference stability in the chaotic environment.
We assume that chaos is an extremely complex, multivalued, but perfectly ordered system, existing according to its rigid laws of determinism of the highest order and level. At the same time, our research suggests that all its participants, both animate and inanimate, play their role in maintaining the viability of the whole system and are “responsible” for its preservation, expressed in their “inherent stable preferences”. At the same time, refusing from the “inherent preference” (which is given, naturally, only to people), the participants of chaos, disturbing the equilibrium, cause damage to the macrosystem as a whole.
This observation, in particular, allowed us to construct a hypothesis that preferences, presumably, are not only a general property of objects, but also form chaotic systems. At the same time, the same preferences of objects also order chaos, leading to the reduction of the number of degrees of freedom.
These findings echo the foundation of Jewish philosophy, which speaks of the responsibility for the fate of the world resting on the shoulders of each individual.
Both of the above phenomena are at an early stage of study.
Next, brief principles of the metaclass theory and a brief description of the particle preference phenomenon.
Particle and its preferences
A physical and mathematical model of a system of particles (“billiard balls”) colliding chaotically in a limited space was constructed. This is the classical system of statistical physics, whose consistent consideration was started by Ludwig Boltzmann more than 100 years ago. Research in this field by Prof. Yakov Sinai has shown that this system is chaotic.
We focused on a system of a small number of particles so that we could study in detail the collision histories of each particle with others.
Observations of collisions of particles on a limited time interval have shown that, in spite of complete identity of particles on mass and volume, the history of collisions of each of them has an individual character. Within the experiment, each particle collided more frequently with some particles and less frequently with others. *
For example, particle A collided with particle B 140 times, with particle C – 89 times, and with particle D – only 28 times. It looks like a chance, however, continuing observations, we see that the difference of numbers of collisions of these particles continues to grow. It looks no longer as an accident, but as “preferences” of particles. **
No matter how long we observe the system at each bounded time slot, we see these stable preferences. ***
Thus, the model shows that collisions of particles with each other in a chaotic medium do not mean that all particles will collide with each other an equal number of times. On the contrary, each of particles has quite certain “preferences” and each of them moves along its absolutely unique path arising from a certain individual order of collisions and repulsions with other particles of the system.
These preferences can be seen as a certain kind of “choice”.
This choice is predetermined by initial conditions (positions and velocities of particles). The unique path that a particle takes due to the collision can be conditionally called “fate”.
Brief principles of metaclone theory
As part of a study of the historical narratives of 77 Jewish clans over a period of 150 to 1800 years, it was found that over the time period studied, the individual preferences of a significant portion of the members of these clans correlated and corresponded to the preference of the clan as a whole, and did not correlate with the cultural, political, and geographical characteristics of the environment. ****
That is, an individual (a member of the Jewish clan in our research) behaves in the total chaos of life circumstances not by chance, but in connection with the dominant behavior (traits, features, characteristics) of his/her clan, which has been behaving this way for 200, 300, 500, 700 (and, interpolating, 3000) years.
In connection with this observation, a concept such as “metaclan” was introduced.
A metaclan is a group of people who share the same ancestor and are related by common kinship, regardless of kinship distance, and who share the same dominant traits of kinship that are passed down through generations. Belonging to a metaclan can be transmitted either paternally or maternally. Each individual simultaneously belongs to different clans (through his ancestors), but most often to only one metaclan, the carrier of the dominant behavior of which he is.
The study has shown that the dominant traits of Jewish metaclans are extremely stable and virtually immune to change. The totality of dominant traits reflects the basic essence of the metaclan.
It is this essence that determines for members of the metaclan certain innate preferences in a number of principal matters. These preferences are aimed at the maximum realization of the dominant features of the metaclan.
It should be noted that, as a rule, “innate preference” remains an unconscious factor, while the refusal of a personality to realize metacognitive traits, paradoxical as it may seem, is precisely in the realm of the conscious.
On the other hand, this essence (a set of certain qualities, traits, characteristics) is a reflection of the function and mission assigned to this metaclan in the macro-system.
The theory also discusses the paradox of individual choice and individual freedom, which seem to be completely annihilated.
When discussing the problem of the role of personality in the situation of choice in the described concept, it should be noted that it is extremely rare that any member of the metaclan not only feels but also realizes the function or mission of the metaclan. Nevertheless, the lack of awareness of this mission practically does not affect the fulfillment of the mission itself.
The paradox of this situation is that the determinism of the metaclan’s purpose is expressed precisely in the unconscious choice of the members of this metaclan to fulfill their purpose. *****
In this sense, we can draw a certain analogy with the behavior of inanimate particles naturally also “unaware” of their preferences and their “choice”.
It should be noted that in the case of personality, the apparent contradiction between “predetermination” and “freedom of choice” is not a contradiction in the real existence of the metaclans we have studied. That is, the well-known binary dilemma “to accept the mission or to refuse it” (in other words, “yes or no”) within the framework of freedom of choice is not relevant in this case. It is not relevant almost as well as for inanimate particles.
It is noteworthy that in the case of conscious refusal from the “path of metaclan” (which cannot be peculiar to a particle, but only to a personality), the very existence of metaclan, as a rule, ceases. This, in fact, is confirmed by similar observations of the individual personality – from the famous Rav Avraham I. Kook with his views on the spiritual life of man, to A. Maslow with his clinical studies confirming the assertion that a personality that ceases to fulfill its meta-task self-destructs, up to literally accelerating the process of physical death.
Conclusion
Finishing this brief description of the research being conducted by the Am HaZikaron Institute in the field of individuality of behavior in chaos, we can draw some preliminary conclusions.
First, it turned out that both animate and inanimate objects demonstrated a peculiar stability of preferences in the chaotic environment. This manifested itself in violations of the random distribution of facts.
Second, studies have indicated that the preferences of metaclan members on a number of fundamental issues are determined by initial conditions (innate dominant traits) quite analogously to how the preferences of a particle in a system of “colliding billiard balls” are determined by the initial conditions of its existence (location and velocity).
In connection with all of the above, we can assume that despite the fact that chaos, as such, at first glance seems to us a disorderly and unsystematic mode, it (on the presented example of complex systems consisting of animate and inanimate objects) is an ordered macrosystem, existing according to the laws of determinism of the highest order and level.