Is anything in nature random?

Leigh Tate wrote:In permaculture design, we speak of patterns:  waves, spirals, lobes, branches, nets, scatters, cloud forms, tessellations, Fibonacci sequences, etc. But does everything in nature fit a pattern? Is anything what we'd call random? I've tended to think not as I study permaculture, but I find myself asking the question. I'm interested in other Permies' opinions about this.

Burra Maluca wrote:everything is so unimaginably complex that our relatively feeble minds perceive it to be so...

Anne Miller wrote:This has some thing to do with the way the word is used,

Leigh, how are you using the word? A verb, adverb, noun?r what?

Nancy Reading wrote:Although we believe we understand some processes there is probably more going on that we don't understand, and those we think are random maybe one day we will understand the rules governing those too.

Leigh Tate wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:This has some thing to do with the way the word is used,

Leigh, how are you using the word? A verb, adverb, noun?r what?

Anne, I'm meaning non-pattern.

Wouldn't my examples be non-pattern?  If not, what would they be called?

Anne Miller wrote:Wouldn't my examples be non-pattern?  If not, what would they be called?

Anne Miller wrote:All my trees are random.

All of my grass is random.

All the rocks and cactus are randomly place here and there.

Leigh Tate wrote:Les, I've been thinking about this. The pattern may be the seasonal rhythm, i.e. the seasonal cycle. Deciduous trees, for example display a pattern of growth and dormancy, with new leaves and later falling dead leaves making a seasonal pattern.

That's my first thoughts trying to make sense of what I see and how it answers my question.

Nick Mick wrote:Nothing in nature is random because nature is an active system that never stops. If a piece of land is destroyed or abandoned then left to the devises of nature it always follows a pattern as time goes on. Same goes for water habitats and all other ecosystems. Randomness seems to me to be a human construct.

Morfydd St. Clair wrote:I think that many things are random, but the larger effect follows a pattern.  For the fallen-leaf example, a leaf falls randomly (subject to wind, etc.) but fallen leaves will accumulate, and thus be noticed by us, based on patterns like: a depression in the ground, or an obstacle making the wind suddenly drop.

Morfydd St. Clair wrote:I think that many things are random, but the larger effect follows a pattern.  For the fallen-leaf example, a leaf falls randomly (subject to wind, etc.) but fallen leaves will accumulate, and thus be noticed by us, based on patterns like: a depression in the ground, or an obstacle making the wind suddenly drop.

Another example: evolution is caused by random mutations.  The mutations that are passed on are largely passed on because they make the owner more likely to have viable offspring.  Those advantages follow patterns - brighter plumage->more mates, or malaria resistance->more surviving children.