Order and Novelty - New Model (Critique of JP)

[martins name]

JP thinks of chaos and order as being on a scale opposite to one another and life being about balancing between the two extremes. This has influenced my thinking greatly but recently I've intuited that his model is flawed. Here is finally my new and better model:

What JP thinks of as chaos, I think of as novelty. I see chaos as something negative. I don't hold these to be opposites on a spectrum but rather as two separate axes. Life is about maximizing both without creating an imbalance by just focusing on just one. In this way, my model and JP's both advocate balance. 

Complexity, which could also be called life often expresses itself as evolution.
 

 

[bmcnicho]

That’s a solid insight!  It’s a good way to reframe the issue.  I believe that all binaries and dichotomies can be transcended, Carl Jung called this the “Hidden Third”.  I think that’s Peterson’s conception is accurate in reference to a particular moment or situation.  In that case, there is an important trade-off between chaos and order in terms of how to handle it.

However, what seeing them as opposites doesn’t take into account is growth over time.  That’s where I think your quadrant model is more complete.  It could be said that Peterson accounts for growth by saying “keep one foot in order and let the other step out into chaos”.  Such that new territory once explored becomes the new order, allowing for further exploration.  But I think seeing complexity as a combination of order and chaos is a more clear conceptualization.

This also made me think of the flow state model.  It’s a bit of a different topic, but the skill axis can be thought of as order and the difficulty axis can be thought of as chaos.  Thus the embodiment of complexity would put you in a flow state

https://images.app.goo.gl/yw9RAfftBvVwV8Be7

[JosephKnecht]

14 hours ago, martins name said:

What JP thinks of as chaos, I think of as novelty.

So you wouldn't say your room is in chaos.

You would say it's a novel way of looking at the room. 

Clean your room. 

[Carl-Richard]

 

18 hours ago, martins name said:

What JP thinks of as chaos, I think of as novelty

Chaos is disorder (hence it's the opposite of order). Do you really think of novelty as disorder?

 

18 hours ago, martins name said:

 Here is finally my new and better model:

How is it better?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

@bmcnicho Thanks. You hit the head on the nail with growth over time. The flow state diagram is very interesting. There are probably more models like that where chaos and novelty are specified in different ways, gonna be on the lookout for it. 

@JosephKnecht I would say that a room can be in chaos. Novelty in the case of a room is how much stuff there is in the room. If there is a lot of stuff in a room but there is not adequate order to organize it then the diagram shows that the room is in chaos. However, a room with novelty is not always chaotic as long as there is enough order to go along with it.

@Carl-Richard All models are semantics. All thoughts are semantics. If you think that this model is just a pointless shuffle of semantics then you are wrong. This model is more complex, sophisticated and useful than JPs's. It's also not trivial to change JP's chaos to novelty. He did an interview with a woman that got upset when JP said that order is masculine and chaos is feminine. She got upset because she rightly intuits that chaos is something negative. This model offers a better story that takes into account her intuition. That the feminine is novelty which is a good force, but if it lacks masculine order it becomes chaos, which is bad.

[Carl-Richard]

34 minutes ago, martins name said:

All models are semantics. All thoughts are semantics. If you think that this model is just a pointless shuffle of semantics then you are wrong. This model is more complex, sophisticated and useful than JPs's. It's also not trivial to change JP's chaos to novelty. He did an interview with a woman that got upset when JP said that order is masculine and chaos is feminine. She got upset because she rightly intuits that chaos is something negative. This model offers a better story that takes into account her intuition. That the feminine is novelty which is a good force, but if it lacks masculine order it becomes chaos, which is bad.

I changed my response. It's semantics in the sense that there was no new lesson added (or at least you didn't specify it). There was no novelty ?

It's very simple. You first have form vs. formless. Then within form, you have order vs. disorder. The balance is life, health, intelligence, beauty, wisdom. That is the lesson.

Novelty is neither order nor disorder, but it's a form of change, maybe development. You can have a state of order which changes to disorder or vice versa. I guess whether it's novelty or not depends on the particular forms that are being produced (e.g. a new species), or maybe even just an abnormally long or short period of either disorder or order can be considered novel.

You can think of it as laying somewhere on the balance between order and disorder. Order and disorder are more fundamental.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's semantics in the sense that there was no new lesson added

Wrong. Novelty and chaos are different things. You can have novelty and if it comes with adequate order then it's not chaos/disorder it's complexity.

Your one-dimensional model is blind to growth. Compare the genesis of life with today. Today there are trillions of times more novelty and order on earth. In the one-dimensional model these things would cancel each other out and you are left where you started: in the middle. In reality we are not where we started, but the one-dimensional model can't account for this. 

It seems to me that you are blind to the new axis that I'm introducing: newness. 

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Novelty is neither order nor disorder

This is what I'm saying, it's another axis.

Novelty is not change, it's newness.

I've thought about your response for a long time and it really seems to me that you don't understand my model. Like you are looking at my two-dimensional model from a one-dimensional lens instead of understanding my two-dimensional perspective.

[Carl-Richard]

35 minutes ago, martins name said:

Wrong. Novelty and chaos are different things. You can have novelty and if it comes with adequate order then it's not chaos/disorder it's complexity.

The statement "what JP thinks of as chaos, I think of as novelty" can be interpreted as you equating the two concepts. 

Also, why does excess novelty necessarily lead to chaos?

 

41 minutes ago, martins name said:

I've thought about your response for a long time and it really seems to me that you don't understand my model. Like you are looking at my two-dimensional model from a one-dimensional lens instead of understanding my two-dimensional perspective.

No. I'm just not understanding what it adds in terms of concrete lessons. We already got the lesson of the necessity of balance from JP. What else you got?

[martins name]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

The statement "what JP thinks of as chaos, I think of as novelty" can be interpreted as you equating the two concepts. 

I see. What I mean is that JP is missing some nuance when he says chaos. I didn't mean to equate. I'm trying to clarify his intuition.

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Also, why does excess novelty necessarily lead to chaos?

When I say excess I mean novelty without order, in other words, disorganized novelty. Like a random mutation that gives us 6 fingers. Adding something new without integrating it with the whole. Throwing a piece of clothing into your room(novelty) without placing it where it should be(no order).

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

No. I'm just not understanding what it adds in terms of concrete lessons. We already got the lesson of the necessity of balance from JP. What else you got?

The concrete lesson is that you should maximize novelty and order while maintaining balance. In JP's model, there is no room for growth. There are trillions of times more novelty and order today on earth than there was at life's genesis. But in JP's model, we haven't gone anywhere. We are still in the middle of the two extremes. From his one-dimensional perspective, it's true but it doesn't see the whole picture.

 

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, martins name said:

The concrete lesson is that you should maximize novelty and order while maintaining balance. In JP's model, there is no room for growth. There are trillions of times more novelty and order today on earth than there was at life's genesis. But in JP's model, we haven't gone anywhere. We are still in the middle of the two extremes. From his one-dimensional perspective, it's true but it doesn't see the whole picture.

You shouldn't actually be maximizing either though, so I don't see a new lesson. The only lesson is balance. Is the new lesson that "development exists"? Because that is not really a lesson. It's just a premise of the model. It's like saying the lesson of JP's model is that there is order and chaos. No, that just is the model. The lesson (or a lesson) is the necessity of balance. Does your model have such a lesson?

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You shouldn't actually be maximizing either though.

Yes you should. again, the amount of novelty and order in the world today is trillions of times greater than at the genesis of life. That is achieved by maximizing both. My model dispels the falsehood that maximum order and maximum novelty are unhealthy extremes. Maximum novelty should be pursued as long as it has enough order to not become chaos.

You can say that the lesson that development exists is uninteresting, but having a model that paints a picture of reality that is blind to development/complexity/evolution is bad.

[Carl-Richard]

32 minutes ago, martins name said:

Maximum novelty should be pursued as long as it has enough order to not become chaos.

That's just balance. You should balance novelty and order.

 

32 minutes ago, martins name said:

You can say that the lesson that development exists is uninteresting, but having a model that paints a picture of reality that is blind to development/complexity/evolution is bad.

It would only be bad if the alternative teaches you more lessons. I don't see how that is the case. "Development exists" is just a description. I'm asking about how I'm supposed to act with this information (because that is JP's assertion with balance: how you should act).

Btw, I apologize if I'm coming off as overly critical. It's just how I criticize myself when I make these kinds of models ?‍? I'm also usually better at wording myself. A lot of the confusion is on me.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

@Carl-Richard When you balance order and disorder perfectly you get a beautiful Picazo painting. But a painting is inanimate and doesn't develop. The logical conclusion of JP's model is that you should be a perfect painting, never too close to total order or total disorder to lose your beauty/harmony. But like a painting, without the axis of newness, you should remain like this forever, and that's the problem

[Carl-Richard]

Just now, martins name said:

@Carl-Richard When you balance order and disorder perfectly you get a beautiful Picazo painting. But a painting is inanimate and doesn't develop. The logical conclusion of JP's model is that you should be a perfect painting, never too close to total order or total disorder to lose your beauty/harmony. But like a painting, without the axis of newness, you should remain like this forever, and that's the problem

How should you act though?

[martins name]

@Carl-Richard Pursue more novelty and more order forever. Never stagnate. 
 

[Carl-Richard]

58 minutes ago, martins name said:

@Carl-Richard Pursue more novelty and more order forever. Never stagnate. 

I don't see how you can not do that though, just like you can't avoid order or disorder. But I can see how you can not do that in an unbalanced way though... So again, I would say it's still just a description, not a prescription.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

@Carl-Richard Ye, it's a description. I just want to model reality the best I can. Then how the truth is used that's secondary.

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

I don't see how you can not do that though

You can stagnate or you can become too chaotic. You probably can't avoid novelty or order completely that's true, but you can have too little.

Edited November 3, 2022 by martins name

[Carl-Richard]

35 minutes ago, martins name said:

@Carl-Richard Ye, it's a description. I just want to model reality the best I can. Then how the truth is used that's secondary.

You can stagnate or you can become too chaotic that's how. You probably can't avoid novelty or order completely that's true, but you can have too little.

As a bit of a side tangent, it's interesting how many models invoke the concept of balance for establishing normativity. Wilber's "transcend and include" – you need a balance between the two, or else your development stagnates. Freud talks about a balance between the id, ego and superego, or else your psyche gets in conflict with itself. Plato likewise talks about the balance between his three aspects of the psyche (the man, the lion and the monster), just like neuroscience talks about the balance between the different brain hemispheres and hierarchies (neocortex, limbic system and the basal ganglia). And of course JP talks about a balance between order and disorder. So relying on the concept of balance is not a bad thing. If anything, it means you're doing something right ;D 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[martins name]

@Carl-Richard ye that's interesting.