Chaos creation

See the discussion of Khunrath s theosophy in Szulakowska, The Alchemy of Light (2000), 79-137. Christ, the Ruah-Elohim, became the Paracelsian azoth. See Heinrich Khunrath, Vom Hylealischen das ist pri-matmalischen oder algerminen naturlichen Chaos (Magdeburg J. Schmeidt for Johann Francken, 1616), 75, 86-88. Christ is also identified with the Paracelsian Salt, the prime matter of creation. 

This was more than a simile. With a word God created an invisible substance, chaos. From this chaos He made The heavens firste as chife and principalle Agente and father of all thinges superioure, and the Earth as principall passive mother of all thinges inferioure. The art of alchemy was analogous to God s creation. 

Forman noted the word chaos next to passages about creation in the alchemical texts that he copied.2 And under the headings for Chaos in his alchemical commonplace books he described creation, much as he had in Upon the firste of Genesis , though in verse.27 Genesis, as Forman explained, was The trewe knowledge, wherof to many is rare which moch may healpe thee in tyme of need . 28... 

This chaos consists of the siccum and humidum. The siccum constitutes the Earth the humidum is the Water. The shadows are the black color, which Philosophers call nigrum, nigro nigrius, (black, blacker than black itself). This is the Philosophical Night, and the palpable shadows. Light in the creation of the world appeared before the sun it is that whiteness of matter, so much desired, which succeeds the black color. Finally the sun appears, of an orange color, the red of which is deepened, little by little to the red of purple this makes the completion of the first work.. 

The Elements begin their generation by putrefaction. They are resolved into a humid nature or First Matter then chaos is made, and from this chaos generation. Thus rightly do Physicists say that preservation is a continual creation since the generation of each individual corresponds to the creation and preservation of the Macrocosm. Nature is always consistent she has only one right way, from which she departs only because of insurmountable obstacles, then she makes monsters. 

The Preparation is composed of four parts. The first is the Solution of the Matter in Mercurial Water the second is the Preparation of the Mercury of the Philosophers the third is the Corruption the fourth is the Generation and the Creation of Philosophic Sulphur. The first is made by the mineral germ of the Earth the second volatilizes and converts bodies into sperm the third causes the separation and rectification of substances the fourth unites and fixes them, which is the Creation of the Stone. Philosophers have compared the Preparation to the creation of the world, which was first a mass, a chaos, an empty, formless and gloomy Earth which was nothing in particular, but all in general the second is a form of heavy, viscous water, full of the occult spirit of its Sulphur and the third is the figure of the Earth which appeared arid after the separation of the Waters. 

CHAOS — In order to attain to the knowledge and the execution of the physical work, the Philosopher must follow the same route that the Great Architect of the universe employed at the creation of the world, by observing how the chaos was disentangled. The chaos could have consisted of no other substance but a moist vapour, for water only is the true receptacle of forms. 

Now, a truly wise Philosopher, once he has understood the foundation and order of nature which the Great Architect of the Universe observed for the construction of what exists in Nature should, so far as he is able, be a faithful imitator of his Creator. In his physical labour he should make his chaos such as it actually was, he should separate the light from the darkness, he should form his firmament to divide the waters from the waters and, in a word, accomplish perfectly, following the path indicated, the whole work of creation. 

The vapour of which we are speaking contains a spirit of light of fire being of the nature of the celestial bodies. This spirit should be properly considered as the form of the universe. The vapour thus impregnated by the Universal Spirit accurately represents the primeval chaos, wherein was enclosed all that was necessary for the creation, that is, universal matter and universal form. 

How can we understand the creation of order out of chaos We begin by noting that the laws of thermodynamics make a distinction between a system and its surroundings. A system is defined as the matter within a defined region of space. 

Another philosophical idea common to the presentation of matter in creation stories is that matter is the opposite of chaos. Matter is thus intimately linked to the human concept of an underlying order to nature. 

Therefore, you must be mindful in the new microcosmic Creation, that is, in the Magnum Opus of the Sages, that all Elements of our Subjecti, as well as the lower and the upper (Light, Air, Water, Earth, Fire, fleeting and fixed Spiritum) be made into a philosophical Water, or respectively into Wine, in which Light and Darkness, Death and Life are together, as it was in the primordial Chaos of Creation. 

The enduring metaphors used in alchemy have to do with creation and destruction—initial chaos and lack of differentiation, conception, the womb or matrix, embryos, gestation, milk, marriage as a union of opposites, the growth and cultivation of plants, and dismemberment, decay and death. The... 

A particularly good definition for the subject of this paper can be found in a dictionary such as "Merriam Webster s Collegiate Dictionary" [1] CHAOS 1 obs Chasm, Abyss 2 a often cap a state of things in which chance is supreme esp the conjused unorganized state of primordial matter before the creation of distinct forms b the inherent unpredictability in the behavior of a natural system (as the atmosphere, boiling water, or the beating heart) 3 a a state of utter confusion b a conjused mass or mixture. The inherait unpredictability in the behavior of a natural system is the concept that we will develop in the next sections in close connection with non-equilibrium thermodynamics of chemical systems. 

The main contribution of non-linear chemistry is the pitchfork bifurcation diagram. A stable state becomes uixstable and bifurcates into two new stable branches. We are unable to foresee which one of these states will be chosen by the nature of the physico-chemical reaction. The multiplicity of choices gives its full importance to Ae evolution of the systems. This paper has aimed to show the extent to which the concepts of non-equilibrium and of deterministic chaos sublimate the fundamental physical laws by leading us to the creation of new structures and to auto-organization. Chemistry is no exception to this rule. The final conclusion is given by Jean-Marie Lehn [21], Nobel Prize Winner in... 

Spiral-defect chaos in Rayleigh-Benard convection. The most remarkable phenomenon that needs an extension of the Swift-Hohenberg model for its explanation, is the development of spiral-defect chaos in Rayleigh-Benard convection [56], [6], which involves rotating spirals, target patterns, dislocations etc. The origin of this complicated behavior is the creation of a two-dimensional mean flow... 

The fundamental assumption was that Chaos represented apeiron, the boundless, infinite and indeterminate original state of the Universe, before the beginning of space and time. From Chaos emerged the first god Chronos, who produced the World Egg of Alchemy. As the god Zeus hatched from the cosmic egg, the shell transformed into Heaven, the skin into Earth, leaving behind Materia prima, the primeval matter that was turned into the four elements through the action of forma, which gave form to shapeless matter. Philosophically, creation brought order, or Cosmos, into Chaos. 

Therefore, this creation of structure did not require far-from-equilibrium conditions rather, it simply required an extravagant use of the energy coin of biology. Order Out of Chaos in terms of the production of the biological molecular machines occurs not under classic irreversible conditions but rather simply by the removal of a side product at the expense of an extraordinary amount of free energy. 

The purpose here is to contrast the author s perspective of the dogged manner in which living organisms create relatively long-lived order out of chaos from the relatively more spontaneous transient creations of order arising out of the Prigogine focus on nonequilibrium thermodynamics. This brings us to consideration of the arrow of time and of evolution and natural selection. 

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