An explanation of Chaos Systems Levels and how they relate to our current situation with Covid-19.
What is a chaos system? It is a system that might seem random and full of disorder and irregularities, but if you look closely, you will see that there are underlying patterns, connections, or loops. What might seem like chaos is governed by specific laws and could be predicted before they start seeming random.
Below are some examples of chaos systems and predictions. Some of which are changeable once predicted, and some even when predicted, they can’t be changed.
If you turn on your TV and catch the weather report segment of the news, they might tell you that it’s going to rain tomorrow. This prediction will not affect tomorrow’s weather in any way. It is for you to know that this might happen and make the necessary arrangements because it might rain. That is because the weather is a level one chaos system.
Another example of predictions is when five years ago, Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, predicted a pandemic similar to the coronavirus that could sweep the world. In his “The next outbreak? We’re not ready?” TED talk, Gates said: “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than war.” He emphasized that if this happens, we are not ready for it. He was right; we weren’t prepared. Alas, not enough people acted on this prediction to stop it from happening or change the course of events.
There are two kinds of chaos systems:
Level one chaos system is a system that does not respond to predictions. As I mentioned, the weather is an example of such a system. Whether we predict that it will be sunny tomorrow or there is a storm, the system will not be affected.
However, a level two chaos system is a system where the prediction will change the chaos’s outcome. Stock markets or politics are good examples of level two chaos systems. That is why it is even harder to predict the outcomes because each prediction in a way or form will change the outcome. If a financial expert predicts that stock X will hit the limit up and reach AED 100, the market will respond, the investors will flock to stock X and buy, which may or may not get stock X to the predicted mark.
At some point in 2020, it felt like we were living in a dystopian future novel. The world felt bizarre and chaotic. Most of the world looked like ghost towns and abandoned cities, isolated from everyone else and secluded from the outside world. Even though Bill Gates predicted that something like this might happen, we did not do enough to stop it from happening, and the highly contagious disease spread.
Hopefully, this whole COVID-19 situation will be enough for us to put many things in place to prevent this from happening again. It should serve as a warning on how vulnerable we are in the face of something new.
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Interesting topic Eng. Omar; it reminds of risk analysis (Probability : Impact) in a way. Loved the way it is structured and the time required to read this info. Keep it up.
Eisa Al Shamsi
Thank you Eisa, glad you enjoyed it.
While reading, I was part of this article I felt it means how I went through last few month and what I’m looking for now. Yes we live in some of most sensitive times where history is in the making and humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge. In every level this crises has changed us but we also learned as we weather those challenges because our world drive us to excel and evolve. The world will never be the same again and although I guess pharmaceutical companies are making billions by now I could only imagine once all of this become in the past how many discoveries will emerged. Helping our kids future getting stronger and reader for events like this to happen again. Thank you Omar
Thank you Mohamed.