Weekend Workshop
Esalen Institute, Big Sur, CA
October 1-3, 2004

Ralph Abraham and Rudy Rucker


Chaotic Mind

The relations among mind, machine, and nature have long been an intriguing nexus of inspiration. The thrust of this workshop will be to explore these connections, focusing both on immediate applications to daily life and on possible methods for social change.

On the personal scale, it is inherent in the nature of computation that we cannot predict the motions of our own minds. A complex computation is unable to outrun itself. This phenomenon is evident in one's daily changes of mood. It is calming to view moods in terms of chaos and strange attractors.

On the social scale, the evolution of chaos and complexity theory holds out the hope for computational solutions to such problems as the population explosion, the devastation of the environment, and the plague of war. Can we influence the global chaotic mind?

Workshop presentations will be more experiential than technical. The workshop will include lectures, discussions, some strolls to observe nature's chaos in the Esalen gardens, as well as a few guided inner-exploration exercises to observe our bodies and minds.


Revised July 16, 2004 by Ralph Abraham