Dialectics and Metaphors: How Chaos Theory and String Theory Can Subvert Cultural Binary Oppositions

A good friend once told me that when we polish everything we leave nothing to hold on to. At the time, the significance of this statement eluded me. I found it unrelatable until I started to explore Chaos Theory and surprising questions started to emerge: If we are always teetering on the brink of order and disorder what does the act of polishing do? Are we just trying to forge a safe haven from uncertainty? Does polishing create cultural binaries? By attempting to reduce the world into binaries and essentialisms a culture ultimately creates very distinct power relations between these divisions. Certain scientific discoveries and theories have served to deconstruct these divisions by challenging former reductionist scientific theories that facilitated social taxonomy. String Theory and Chaos Theory can be used as paradigms for breaking the cultural binaries and power relations that adhere to constructed social norms. Current heteronormativity can be challenged by adopting a new perspective on the notion of chaos and embracing uncertainty as a way of examining one's surroundings.

Binary oppositions are an intricate part of the development of myth and cultural norms. Meaning is created by the juxtaposition of two binaries and is internalized by those living within the culture. However, conflicts arise with the use of binaries; the act of polarizing sexual and social roles and identities creates power conflicts. One is often associated with good/normative/acceptable and thus assimilated into the realm of cultural acceptability. The opposite is relegated to the position of the other and pushed to the fringes of heteronormative society. These coded notions of identity the world around us degrades and alienates those who cannot perfectly adhere to an ideal (Haraway 177-78). The other exists between boundaries; it can take the form of a monster, "defining the limits of community," reveals Donna Haraway, the product of a blurring of binaries (180).

Chaos Theory elevates the other to the position of the ordinary. It attempts to, according to John Briggs and F. David Peat in their Turbulent Mirror, "shift attention from the quantitative features of dynamical systems to their qualitative properties" (Briggs 14). It is a reductionist's nightmare; a theory which studies systems that are extremely sensitive to initial conditions. These systems can be described through nonlinear equations and one cannot use the solution to one of these equations to predict others (24). Chaos and turbulence is inherent in these systems, arising because of an interconnectivity between components (52). These findings have dashed scientists desires to create oppositional binaries and predict a system's movement. This new view of chaos has provided a dialectic in traditional scientific thought.

Cultural perspectives on the relationships between order and chaos have shifted through the millennia. Early cultures believed gods existed in the spaces between order and chaos. However, these beliefs were discarded with the onset of the scientific revolution (Briggs 20-21). Platonic puritanical morality submerged the notion of balance between these forces and focused attempts to diminish any form of disorder within sight (21-22).

This classical reductionist view of science was shattered the development of nonlinear equations and the feedback loops. Nonlinearity eliminated reductionism and predictability, producing turbulence and Platonically imperfect pictures of nature (Briggs 24-26). Our world is extremely susceptible to chaotic fluctuations cause by non-linearity. Biological systems use it to thrive and change. In this sense, the "part is the whole" states Briggs and Peat. When a system is so dependent each its components they cannot be discarded through analysis. They hold equal importance to the whole because, through iteration, a tiny change in one will produce a magnified reaction in the system (75).

Chaos Theory recognizes that chaos is not the polar opposite of order; it exists as order in an almost imperceptible and subtle form (Briggs 44). If a society were to internalize and recode this chaos/order binary it could potentially deconstruct existing power relationships. What if there were no predictable and definable social role of a woman? What if the divisions between the sexes were in a state of flux?

Another popular scientific theory can incite some of these same questions and raise additional. Like Chaos Theory, String Theory took a beloved model of the universe and turned it on its head. It took the normativity out of the creation story. It deflated the idealized view of a heavenly-sprouted Big Bang. String Theory replaced it with multiple dimensions, multiple universes, and cosmic strings (Cowen 2-5).

One of the reasons String Theory can be effective at inciting change in social consciousness is its massive popularity with the general public. Its success can be greatly attributed to its inherent queerness. The theory's weirdness is more easily visualized than that of Chaos Theory's, spawning countless quirky television shows exploiting its mass appeal. Its queer attractiveness plays upon a culture's desire to explore the other, the deviants of our world existing on the fringes of public consciousness.

Unlike the Big Bang Theory, String Theory attempts to explain what provoked the creation of our universe by postulating that our universe exists on a membrane. In short, the collision of two of these membranes incited the Big Bang (Cowen 5-6). In order to visualize this phenomena one will have to draw from atypical sources of influence. One would need to grasp that our universe is in flux and one of an infinite number (3).

Unfortunately, String Theory is riddled with criticisms about its falsifiability. "Instead of a theory we only have wishful thinking," states Andrei Linde (Cowen 7). The controversies, however, do not diminish its potential for inspiring the deconstruction of binaries.

How can one assimilate these theories into action? How can science provide a metaphor for embracing uncertainty? Donna Haraway offers her answer in her book, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. She uses the image of the cyborg because can be used to recode the self and social classifications. Its task is to break binaries. Haraway defines a cyborg as a "cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction" (Haraway 149). It is not only a monster of our militaristic and capitalistic society, but a metaphor used to redefine boundaries and deconstruct dualisms.

Like Chaos Theory, the cyborg betrays its roots in science and acts as a dialectic for the essentialist culture in which it was created. The cyborg does not fit into on definitive category; it confronts the binaries of scientific and societal doctrine that have been embedded in culture. These binaries have been used in the "domination of all constituted as others" (Haraway 177). Haraway calls for affinity over identity. She believes that unity and kinship should be sought while maintaining differences (179-81). In this way, Haraway's cyborg can be used to visualize ways in which scientific theories can produce cultural changes.

By adopting a new definition of chaos and embracing paratactical relations - those which embrace affinity whilst maintaining difference - cultural binary oppositions can be subjected to the same flux as nonlinear systems. Chaos Theory and String theory facilitate the deconstruction of dominant ideologies through the assimilation of queerness. This queerness is often coupled with the experience of being the other. Briggs and Peat state that, "all life is a form of cooperation, an expression of feedback arising out of the flux of chaos" (Briggs 156). These ideas of flux and feedback loops between organisms challenge dominant hegemony and promote comfort in the blurring of boundaries. By embracing dissonance, sexual politics, social inequalities, and cultural essentialisms start to fracture and fall into disarray. Leaving our world unpolished and rough allows for difference, a new ideal for beauty.







Works Cited

Briggs, John, and F. David Peat. Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Sciences of Wholeness. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989.

Cowen, Ron. "When Branes Collide: Stringing Together a New Theory For the Origin of the Universe." Science News. 22 Sep. 2001: 184-86. 25 Sep. 2009 .

Haraway, Donna J. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1990.


2009