Chaos and Order – Your Computer is Evil.

by gcadmin on Monday, February 19th, 2018 No Comments

There are many theories on good and evil – many discussed in great detail by Philosophers that are long dead. Chaos versus Order relate in many ways to Good versus Evil. Order is Good, so Chaos is equivalent to Evil.

I won’t presume to know even a fraction of the various position and nuances, arguments and counter arguments.
However I can tell you my opinion. Good needs Evils to exist. How can you be good, by choice or accident unless you can be ‘not good’ – Evil.
In computers, you actually cannot represent data unless you have true and its opposite false – the 1 and the 0.

It also seems to me that the battle between good and evil is necessary – and the true triumph of our spirit is in the battle itself.

The bible says that initially there was nothing – Total Chaos. It was God that used the power of the ‘word’ to create the world – creating Order from Chaos.

The order was Good and later – as the story unfolds Chaos within the order is unleashed again – albeit more localised.

Your computer is Chaos – Evil – when you turn it on.

Your typical computer is made up of a processor (Central processing unit – CPU), Volatile Memory (Random Access Memory – RAM), Fixed Memory (Read Only Memory – ROM), Persistent/Stable Memory (‘Disk’).

In simple terms, the moment you turn your computer on, many of the internal components are in a chaotic state – the memory is mostly random. 1Yes – I know depending on the type of RAM it might not be truly random – some bits/bytes might retain the previous value and some percentage might revert to 0 or 1 etc depending on the type. The point is it’s not reliable..

The CPU reads some commands from the ROM. The is stable and fixed, and the instructions in the ROM that the CPU follows starts to put order in the chaos.
The CPU is the engine, following instructions in the ROM to put order into the rest of the computer – basically the RAM, possible the storage. The “putting in order” is things like clearing memory, loading a small program, a ‘boot loader’ whose job is to load the next more complex programs, the ‘operating system’ to put more order into the computer and its memory.

The ROM, usually is small – it has the most important rules to allow your computer to become ready.
2Actually the amount of memory in ROM can be quite large. The point is the part of the ROM used to get the computer going initially is quite small compared to the amount of information in the rest of the computer.
The ROM allows ‘stable’ instructions to be loaded from the Disk. This is typically called the ‘boot loader’ and during this process the ‘random’ memory is brought to order – at least enough for allow the computer and various programs it is running to perform their functions.

Computer Fights and becomes Good – mostly

Let me put my GC lens on.

CPU= God’s universe Order and Chaos / Good and Evil
RAM=Random Chaotic Memory
Disk=Potential Culture and Chaotic Data

If you turned this ‘computer’ on, it would not run.

God created the Physical world/universe with the rules it follows – The Physics in our universe. This is like the CPU. (It has the potential to execute and perform something useful – but in itself is not useful.)

The Bible – eg the old testament – is a set of instructions – They are short and proven – and ‘provided’ by the Manufacturer – God. This is the ROM. Instructions to allow the CPU to do something more.
To start putting order into the world made up of us humans.

We humans are the processes running on the computer – the ROM gives us instructions to flourish. It lets us exists and multiply – (from 2 God-created templates or a nascent species evolving in the primordial soup over time into a tribal creature – Doesn’t really matter).

As our tribe of humans grow in numbers and we survive the ages, we learn and write some of our own instructions. The instructions and rules work! They are proven to work because they survive over time and many generations. We save these new rules into the Disk. We can change it – as we evolve – A updated set of rules are the written in the new testament – service pack 2 if you like.

There is chaos in the RAM and the disk. We are, in the GC view, processes running on God’s computer. We are trying to cooperate using the collected wisdom (rules in ROM and the operating system)

Balance is needed.

So our computers fight chaos to run. They need to bring order to the chaos to be able to perform something useful.
However, some chaos is necessary – if there was no randomness or new input it would be static – and dead. For example, many programs use random numbers. These random numbers are used in many places, from caching data, to generating secure keys and encryption. If there was absolutely no randomness or chaos, then these programs would either not run at all, or be so predictable that there would be no security.

Here is a different example – Say all of the memory was filled with order and meaningful data. With no new data to change, any existing processes would be in meaningless loops. The same data would be constantly returned, no new information could be saved. The computer is effectively no longer changing and its benefit has stopped. It is dead and may as well be turned off.

Too much Chaos is also bad. If there was so much chaos that any instruction the CPU tries to execute would randomly fail then the computer would be wildly unstable. Loosing data, killing process etc. If the memory was severely unreliable, the computer would be equally unstable. Even if the programs tried to adapt to the unreliable memory, what would be sacrificed was stability. In the worst case, all its time and effort would be spent trying to determine if it had the correct memory. Too much Chaos leads to the same result – a non-functioning computer – a dead computer.

Salient points:

Your computer would not run without some ROM code – So ancient rules in a bible or custom and culture should be treated with respect.
It is ok and needed to enhanced and add to the ROM code. The operating system needs patching, but these should be done with care and tested over thousands of instances and long periods of time. So although we can add, augment and even change the ROM – We would do this with care.
- - There is a term common now ‘bricking’ a device – This is when a patch/fix or change to the ROM or critical software is bad – and instead of having a running device, it no longer runs – it is dead. So augmenting and replacing our ancient rules should be done with great care. As if our existence depended on it – because it does.
Chaos is needed – but too much and the computer will crash.
Order is needed – but too much and the computer die.
Our human tribe built on ancient traditions must equally balance Chaos and Order.

Related: God’s ROM Code

Related: Minecraft – Good and Bad

Spead the word -