> My understanding is that in a chaotic system a small error in the
> initial conditions is magnified and results in a short time in macro
> effects. I believe that it was first thought about in the weather
> where a small computer error cased big changes in weather predictions.
> Basically I think that originally people thought that if you just
> measured very accurately the state of each point in the atmosphere and
> had large enough computers then you could predict the weather but then
> they discovered chaos and realized that even if they got down to very
> small cells for initial conditions the macroscopic weather would still
> be uncertain. The analogy was the butterfly. If a butterfly flaps its
> wing it could shortly cause a hurricane-or something like that. See
> chaos in the wiki.  So if want to maintain a structure you would have
> to have exact initial conditions or else the small deviation from that
> would result in a macro effect and wipe out the whole organism. So if
> you stored information it would become erased by uncertainty being
> "pumped up" from the microscopic world into the macroscopic world. I
> think there are chaotic aspects of life in branching of veins for
> example but I think if an organism existed in a chaotic system it soon
> would not. My understanding is that a structure is non-chaotic because
> the elements either don't move or have limited motion relative to
> them. Gases and liquids are chaotic. I am sure that must be an
> oversimplification but you get the idea. If you raise your arm the
> lower it and raise it again you end up back in the same place. If you
> know where your hand was initially you can put it back there.
> Presumably there are some kind of structures in the brain that are
> persistent and not impacted by chaos.

> I guess you could say that if you had a "structure" in a liquid and
> then stirred it it would destroy the structure. I guess the question
> of whether life can exist on the sun might be related to the question
> of whether life can exist in pure liquid form or in a gas form. Can
> it? Does life require solids? Intuitively I think the answer is yes
> but I don't think I could prove it.