(This is Part 16 of a series. Go back to Part 15.)
The logistic equation proves that the initial conditions of a system can be so sensitive that the system is essentially unpredictable even though it is completely determined.
As the constant in the logistic equation moves from the low 3's towards 4, what had been a smooth curve showing growth and decay suddenly breaks up into wildly unpredictable, chaotic movement. Moreover, if the constant changes by so much as 1 in a trillion trillion the end result coming out of the equation is completely different, showing how sensitive the equation becomes to initial conditions.
This quality, where the end result is completely determined and yet completely unpredicable, is characteristic of the equations that describe chaotic systems. And, fortunately or unfortunately, chaotic systems turn out to be ubiquitous in the universe, from weatherstorms to the network of neurons in the brain.
As an aside from our main direction here, we might note that this is why it would be a good idea to be careful with the overall ecology of planet earth, because, as the logistic and other equations demonstrate, a trend (even a negative one) that seems smooth and predictable can—beyond a certain point—turn wildly chaotic and unpredictable. The same could easily happen to the ecology of our planet.
But to continue on the main road:
It is quite possible that the entire universe is like this, completely determined and yet essentially unpredictable. This unpredictable quality helps to explain how we can have the subjective experience of "deciding" and "choosing" even though all things are being handled automatically by the one energy, and even though there's actually no personal "I" around to be making any choices anyway.
In other words, we don't actually exist as what we think we are—this personal self/chooser/decider thing—and yet there is the appearance of choice and the appearance of personal existence, and the subjective experience of these qualities.
Or we can look at it in terms of levels. At one level, choice and the personal self seem to exist. At a deeper level, there's only one thing, one energy, one essence, and it's doing everything. And actually, both levels can be "true" simultaneously, just as you exist simultaneously as both molecular chemistry and a social personality.
At the level where choices seem to exist, it also seems to matter what choices we make. It actually doesn't, because no matter where we go we'll still just be meeting the absolute, but it seems to do so.
At the level where choice seems to exist, the choice that seems to matter the most is not what we choose to "do" but the choice of how to internally interpret what is happening. In turn, our interpretation of events tends to have a profound effect on our subsequent course of action.
This applies especially, in my opinion, to the suffering that exists in the world. A certain amount of pain comes on its own, but we seem to add greatly to it by interpreting things in such a way as to make war on reality-as-it-is.
Let's take a couple of examples:
My dad used to criticise me incessantly when I was a child. And my constant question was, "Why won't he just accept me as I am?" What I didn't realize was that as long as I kept my attemtion on him, I was literally keeping the whole destructive process in place.
The breakthrough came decades later. My father had continued to criticize me of course, and I kept wanting him to stop it. In other words, I kept wanting him to change. The breakthrough came in realizing that I was doing to him exactly what I was accusing him of doing to me. That is, I wanted him to change and be different, which was exactly his postion towards me.
This realization was such a reversal of everything I had previously thought about him that it just floored me. And it came none too soon—in early 1984, just six months before my father died. In those last six months, my father and I were able to heal our relationship. And here's how it happened:
As I realized that it was I who wasn't accepting him—specifically, that I was not accepting his non-acceptance of me—I decided to accept my dad exactly as he was, including his non-acceptance of me. I became much more spacious towards my dad, because I no longer wanted him to be any different. It became perfectly fine with me if my dad wanted to keep on criticizing me; why should I want him to be any different?
My dad noticed this greater spaciousness coming from me towards him. He definitely noticed it, because it began coming out in my speech and actions and attitude. And guess what? The last thing I expected happened. My dad began to respond to this increased spaciousness, and began to act more spacious towards me.
Milabile dictu! Years of banging my head against the wall trying to get him to change didn't work, yet once I accepted that he simply was as he was, and stopped offering resistance to that, suddenly everything in our relationship shifted.
Notice that the breakthrough didn't come from focusing on getting him to act differently, or even from getting myself to act differently, but rather, from an internal acceptance of reality as it is.
(This is the end of Part 16. Go to Part 17.)
—jim sloman, 1.21.03 for 4.07.03
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