 9 May 2010 @ 20:53
UNCERTAINTY
Kicking a pebble by the side of the road,
Watching it tumble pell-mell.
Chance and randomness become order.
There is chance in this world. Things happen randomly. When a pebble
is accidentally kicked down the hill, there was no arrangement, there
was no plan. It simply happened -- a colliding of bodies. Some people
argue that there is order to this universe, asserting that "God doesn't
play dice." What is the relationship of order and disorder?
We might say that randomness becomes order. There might be an
overall framework to things -- like procreation, for example -- but
within that framework, we have the random combination of cells that
accounts for the vigor and creativity of the system. By the same token,
we may have some constants to a system, such as gravity, but within the
constraints of that system, there is chance. One wonders if this means
that everything tends toward disorder.
For this to be true, there would have had to be order in the first
place. Where did it come from? How was it imposed? Or was there always
disorder and chance inherent in the universe, and did they somehow
become part of the fabric of reality? Those who follow Tao way know that
there is no definitive way to resolve this question. They are more
interested in accepting the fact that there is always uncertainty in the
universe and working with that. For them, incorporating uncertainty into
life is at the heart of Tao. That is when they feel the most human.
365 Tao: Daily Meditations
Deng Ming-Dao
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