To our senses, it can be agreed that nothing can be in more than one place at once. Yet electrons can be in an infinite number of places simultaneously.

Electrons behave both like waves and like particles, even when said behaviors contradict one another.

It is impossible to know both the location and velocity of an electron.

Photons, which are massless particles, are still affected by gravity.

Time moves more slowly when an object is accelerating, and reaches a near-standstill as one approaches the speed of light.

The Universe is expanding more and more rapidly with no apparent reason to do so.

All apparently solid matter consists of more than 99% empty space.

When an object (let's say a train) is in motion, a person measuring it from on board and a person measuring it from the platform will get entirely different measurements.

I could go on, but the point is that none of this is intuitive. No one would have figured any of this out just using their intuition and senses.

And NO scientific evidence. What a surprise.

Scientific evidence only observes what is and they cannot look outside of the box. That is what they do. They are ill equipped to see beyond that.

You have to get out of the box, out of the body in order to comprehend a multi-dimensional universe.

But I'm sure you don't know anything about that. You hold 'science' up as your God and your final authority.

Well, let's not forget that science is totally dependent upon mathematics. Especially when it comes to question of whether something is random or has a pattern.

Mathematically if you produce a random string of digits the chances that you will ever produce a rational number is zero. It will never happen.

Reference: "Number Theory"

If you'd like to take a video course on it I would suggest "Introduction to Number Theory", by Edward Burger. It's a 24 lecture course that you can just sit back and enjoy.

Or you can purchase any book on Number Theory or take a course on it a college.

Since this is indeed a mathematical theorem of Number Theory, and since science is totally dependent on mathematics, then Science actually supports what Jeanniebean said.

It's meaningless to think that order would ever come from chaos.

That's an accepted mathematical theorem of Number Theory.

Moreover, there is no scientific evience that chaos ever existed.

On the contrary the scientific evidence shows precisely the opposite.

First thing we need to do is get our minds out of the old Classical Newtonian idea that atoms are random billiard balls. They aren't.

Modern science has recognized that atoms actually arise from some very strange field of potentiality. We call this field the 'quantum field' becuase its behavior is indeed qunatized. It operates via a very strange process of 'quantum leaps' that defy our Classical ideas of logic.

None the less this is what we observe. And even though this quantum field defies our ideas of logic, it still apparently operates by very strict orderly 'laws' even though they defy our ideas of logic.

To the best of our knowledge this entire unvierse (and most certainly every atom within it) arises from this orderly quantum field.

So there is no scientific evidence that chaos had ever existed.

Thus there's really no reason to even ask a question like "Why order from chaos?". To the best of our knowledge, with respect to this unviesre, there was never a time when chaos existed.

Jeanniebean starts out her OP:

"So there was supposedly the Big Bang.

And chaos reined."

But who said that chaos reigned?

That's a totally unwarranted assumption right there.

Just because it was so complex that it boggles the minds of humans doesn't imply that it was chaotic at all.

On the contrary, from what we now know about the quantum field, there was never a time when it wasn't compeltely orderly. The Big Bang was a very well-ordered explosion in terms of quantum physics.

I know. So what?





Blah blah blah. These are all well known accepted facts. So what? I know about these. It has nothing to do with my assertion.


So tell me something I don't know. These are all very well known scientific observations. None of them prove that chaos becomes order by chance, accident or happenstance.

Neither does it explain what it is that you (or others) are calling "naturalism." That is almost like saying "mother nature did it."

And I did not say any of that was "intuitive" either.

I am simply asserting that the universe involves intelligence and intelligent design and that it is glaringly obvious to me. I can't prove it in a classic "scientific" way because it involves looking outside of the box (universe) for the answers and 'science' does not do that.

So while you can claim you 'see no evidence of intelligent design' neither can you disprove my claim. And my claim will remain until you can come up with something that works.

Well I tend to agree that what people call "chaos" may just be the appearance of "chaos." But like the alleged "big bang" it is what "scientists" assume. I have my doubts about both.

All of that can all just be part of the plan or design. "Lets mix this stuff together and see what happens.." Then they discover that life happens when they mix this with that. Could be we are just an ingredient in some recipe of the quantum soup.

Well, this is indeed the current evidence given by scientitic investication.

The universe is indeed made up of a quantum soup that apparent has a very well-organized and precise recipe.

That's the scientific evidence to date.

So any talk about happenstance, or chaos, is non-scientific mumbo jumbo.

The current scientific evidence is indeed that this universe is the result of a cosmic "recipe". A recipe that produces a mere handful of about 100 interacting parts, along with complete instructions of precisely how they must interact.

To claim otherwise is to deny the very observations that have been discovered by science itself.

To think that a mere 100 well-defined, and well-behaved parts should just 'accidently do anything' is absurd. Whatever they do, they do because they have no choice in the matter.

In fact, even that teeny-tiny group of 100 parts isn't happenstance or random. Science has also observed that to be the case. The periodic relationship between thse atoms was discovered by Dmitri Mendeleev - this is now call "Chemistry".

So it's been well-established by science that neither this universe, nor the parts that make it up are mere chaotic or happenstance. They are extremely well-designed and have relationships to one another that could be called anything but 'random'.

What's the mathematical probability that a mere 100 random atoms would be related to each other in such a close-knit meaningful way?

Well, we already saw from Number Theory that the probability is zero. Completely zero. The actual mathematical proof of that is actually given in the video that I cited above. And the prove is easy to follow (although it does appeal to a calclus limit, but it's a truly simple and obvious limit that is quite intuitive even if a person isn't educated in calculus).

So yes, science has indeed disovered that this univese is the result of a soup with very special (and clearly non-random) ingredients.

At least according to my understanding of chaos theory, in Buddhism the concept of the individual and the soul do not exist; in fact they are refuted. Nor is there an inherent sense of me-ness that can be distinguished or segregated from the rest of the world. Everything, they say, is related and dependant. Nothing is independent.

The argument goes that each situation, each decision, each so-called “fact” was reached through a complex series of incidents, without which the uniqueness of its circumstances just wouldn’t exist. This applies to the argument against a notion of self as well.

What I consider to be “me” is in fact not one distinct unit. “Me” is comprised of hands, fingers, wrists, elbows and so-on; but even these are not distinct unto themselves either. Cells regularly die and are replaced by new ones. So literally speaking, the physical personal I call “me” right not is not going to be the same one getting on the bus tomorrow. Physcially the cells will be different.

Similarly, if a person is the sum of their experiences, this too is different from one moment to the next. Therefore I cannot say I am consistent and ever-present throughout my lifetime because of the circumstances and experiences I am a part of; because the aggregated pool of experience changes from one instance to the next.

Likewise is the concept of mind as distinct from brain. As with an inherent concept of “me”, what we consider the mind – at least in my understanding – is reliant on our comprehension of reality, information, and experience, both past and present. Given this changes constantly, the notion of one eternal mind cannot exist either.

The brain is comprised of distinctly distributed activities. As such it is not a single entity. Physically it’s also composed of cells too, which as I said die and change from one day to the next.

I wonder if this is what we’re talking about when we say chaos theory?

As I study Buddhism I discovered a doctrine called the "dependent origination" or "dependent co-arising." To scientists, it seems formally the same as Chaos Theory, but more inclusive. Where Chaos Theory only explains the interdependence of physical causality, dependent co-arising also includes mental factors in the web of mutual causal interaction.

In contrast to our simplistic notion of causation whereby A causes B, which causes C, which causes D, the Buddhist theory recognizes the true complexity of causation. Everything is involved causally with everything else. According to the Buddha, causality is a function of relationship, of mutual factors that cannot be isolated, including "feedback" interactions -- the mutual influence of dependent and independent variables.

No effect arises without cause, yet no effect is predetermined, for its causes are multiple and mutually affecting. Hence there can be novelty as well as order. Thus, Buddhist teachings presented a middle way between the positions of determinism and indeterminacy that had polarized the discussion of causality.

The middle way is something I have posted in the Buddhist thread for those interested in knowing what this is about. It could use some attention and also some work.

If I understand all that correctly, the concept of “order” is a function of “viewpoint”. That is, without viewpoint, there is no order, only chaos.

And I agree with that.

I just don’t agree that “…the individual and the soul do not exist…” In my view, the “individual” is what chooses/assumes a viewpoint. And since order is a function of viewpoint, it is the act of assuming a viewpoint that establishes order.

Hi John. You're going to be really peeved at me for posting the following comments, but I can't help it, I'm in a mood tonight to be quite open and frank.

When you say that Buddhism rejects the notion of the individual soul which version of version of Buddism you're talking about?

There are many different versions of Buddhism.

The original version began with Siddhartha Gutama in India, and has since been called, "Theravada Buddhism" (meaning "old-school" Buddhism).

That version of Buddhism was based on a belief in 'reincarnation' in which an 'individual karma' was indeed maintained. So this would imply an "individual soul" at least in the sense that Jeanniebean defined it in her thread entitled "Do we have souls? What about a clone?". Otherwise it would make no sense to even speak of such a concept as 'karma' with respect to "reincarnation".

So Siddhartha Gutama was already under the culture belief in both reincarnation and karma (both of which are indeed ideas of an individual 'soul').

Sid was a philosopher and sat around meditating on these idea. He finally reasoned the if our actions and thoughts are what produce our karma, then all we need to do is quit thinking, and quick acting (especially in terms of wanting something more), and then our karma will cease to exist, because it is are very desires and wants that cause us to have karma in the first place. In short, stop driving the boat, and you'll stop making a wake.

Once he came to that conclusion he shouted, "Eureaka! I won't be back!". All that is required is to cease to want anything or make plans for a future. Then you won't created a karma to unfold. Sid, also believed that life is suffering and so the idea thing would be to just get the hell out of here.

Some people look back on this and believe that Sid was simply an overly emotional person who was extremely bothered by the suffering in life, so he convinced himself that if he could just get rid of all his wants and desires he would no longer have a karma to fulfill and thus not 'come back'. In fact, no one is even sure what that even means. Did Sid then simply cease to exist when he died? Or did his individual soul (associated with a reincarnation karma) then go on to bigger and better things?

No one seems to have an answer for that question, insofar as I know.

In any case, this original idea finally gave way to a newer version called "Mahayana Buddhism" Mahayana simply means the 'Great Vehicle" and refers to the fact that the old-school version of Theravada Buddhism had been getting quite diverse in ideas, and the Mahayana Buddhism held that it can all be collected into one idea. That idea was still an idea along the same lines. In fact with Mahayana Buddhism came the idea of the bodhisattva (a person who postpones their enlightenment for the sake of helping other's find enlightenment). In fact, they often demanded that to become a Buddhist monk a person must first vow to become a bodhisattva. Ironically this is precisely the Buddhism that Jesus would have learned about had he traveled to India in his life. Say between the time he was 12 and 30. Had he learned this type of Buddhism then his "mission" would be to enlighten others at all cost. He would have had to vow to become a bodhisattva. Interesting huh?

In any case, at this point Buddhism still endorsed an idea of an "individual soul" that has "attached" to it an "individual karma" associated with "individual reincarnation". So Buddhism endorses a concept of individual soul at this point.

However, then Buddhism spread through China and there were many "versions" of Buddhism created there. Buddhism encountered Taoism in China as well and was strongly affected by those ideas. It finally ended up the Japans and was transformed even further to become Zen Buddhism.

Zen Buddhism is far removed from the original Buddhism that came out of India. In fact, many people are saying that Zen Buddhism has become nothing more than a glorified version of atheism. As you point out, they may well reject any notion of an 'individual soul' which pretty much plays havoc with any idea of 'reincarnation'. After all, what meaning would re-incarnation even have outside of an "individual soul"? May as well take the re part off, and just call it plain old "incarnation".

What sense would re-incarnation if the thing that is being "incarnated" is new and fresh each time? That wouldn't be re-incarnation, that would be just plain incarnation.

The very term re-incarnation implies that something that once was, is being re-incarnated again. But that implies a sense of individual soul.

So when you say:



Which version of Buddhism are you referring to and do they even believe in a concept of re-incarnation, or do they hold that there is no such thing as re-incarnation and that all that exists is "incarnation". And if so, then how is that anything more than just gloried atheism like some people suggest?

And how does that even fit in with the idea of Siddhartha Gutama (the original Buddha?). Some people even ask if Zen Buddhism even has the right to call itself "Buddhism" because it is so far removed from the ideas of Siddhartha Gutama that it no longer retains the same philosophy.

Yes I have thought about this too. I have said that the universal mind contains all things, and it is the viewpoints that create order (within the mind,) because each viewpoint stores memory of all of its experiences and knowledge. They (and we) are essentially storage units.

But in considering the chaos question.. "From where does this universal mind arise?" I have considered that the mind itself may be arising from the apparent chaos via the universal law of attraction which states "That which is like, unto itself is drawn." (like attracts like) and in the gathering of many viewpoints towards each other, they form a group which forms a unified field (a group mind) and that group mind becomes a body with a force field of energy around it, which is the universal mind.

Within that universal mind, other fields are manifested and many other universes can arise in multi-dimensional layers just as our own minds seem to have different layers of consciousness.

Mind you, this universal mind is unimaginably vast. It contains not only the entire physical universe but other universes at other layers and densities.

The only problem with that idea is that reality doesn't support it.

If there were such a law in affect, we'd expect humans to become increasingly in agreement and unified in thought over time.

Just look at the mediterranean religions. Even though they all began with extremely similar views they continued to disperse until they've created a myriad of different views even hotly constesting one other. They continue to grow more and more diverse over time until the church finally collapsed. All that's left today are religious fanatics that argue with each other's views.

So this is precisely the opposite of what should happen if there were a law of attraction that naturally causes like thoughts to coalesce.

Yes it does support it. Even down to this particular thread. People with similar thoughts and interest are gathered here discussing the same topic. You, me and Sky form sort of a group mind because we agree on a lot of points. Then the opposing team forms their group.

Also, this entire world is a group consciousness. This does not mean that we all agree. But we did all agree to be here IMO.

Like is drawn to like constantly, and opposites neutralize the polarity of the world for balance. The religions began with similar view and were drawn together, then within that group they found small differences and split into two or three more groups. Within those groups, like is drawn to like. You would not be drawn to a group where you did not agree with their thinking, you would be drawn to one that you found reasonable for you.

Because each of us are unique, we each have a unique view of reality and we are drawn towards others whose views are similar.

As we go further, the groups get smaller and smaller until we realize just how unique we are and ours becomes a group of one. Then we walk a lonely road to the next stage of consciousness.

You and I have discussed many things until we found areas where our views were different. It is the same with Sky and me. Our views are remarkably similar but diverge in a couple of areas.

In the end, we are alone in our unique views.

And that is not really a bad thing.

its really not that hard a concept to grasp...really its not..law of attraction...think about it..big bang..huge chaotic dispersion of all life giving elements..some elements collide and change,(eg. hydrogen and oxygen)become bigger,attract more elements change again ..bigger and bigger the masses get til they create gravity and start collecting everything near by..eventualy you get a solor system...everything is created out of chaos only us as humans give it order

Well, you had my support up until these last few words.

Humans don't give the universe order. Clearly the universe had order previous to the existence of humans and that's precisely why humans now exist (along with all other lifeforms)

The Buddhist idea of “no self” was very confusing to me in the beginning. I had the same reaction as most of you have now. Some of you have even replied and denied this philosophy. I thank you for your input on opinion and am not offended or upset. It is just an opinion that you hold strongly for. I can understand that and support your idealogy because it works for you.

I see that many understand the beginnings of how Buddhism was taught and how it evolved later into different foundations like James has explained earlier a few posts up, yet many don’t go past the actual teachings of what was taught.

It gets confusing and doesn’t fit in well with what we were raised or grew up with. The beginning of Buddhism is where it stays at for most that try it out. This is where patience is required. One also has to remember that there are many different views on its teachings. The philosophy of Buddhism wants you to find what works best for you.

Each individual will have a different understanding of its teachings. Actually most people believe in somekind of soul in this world. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I have considered trying to understand a different concept that could be possible and enjoyable to learn. Now as I learned about this concept, I decided to create notes and comparisons on how we can attain this knowledge within our own lifetime. It is a bit lengthy, yet nevertheless it will provide an understanding that you can accept or not. Your choice of course!

If I asked you who you are, what would you say? Many people might begin by telling me what they do for work – teacher, software engineer, and accountant. But no, I’d say. That’s the work you do, not who you are. If you changed or lost your job, that identity would disappear. So who are you really?

OK, then next you might tell me something about your family and your people – perhaps you’re a mother or father, a person of African descent, an American citizen, and so on. But no, that’s you in relation to others. So who are YOU, independent of them?
So then you might bring up your personality or values – an introvert, a romantic, or that you have a deep love of beauty. But I’d say these are descriptors of ways you behave or what motivates you. They aren’t who you are.

The thing is, we can continue this exercise forever, but we’ll never find anything we can nail down as “who we are.” That’s because everything we come up with is superficial and impermanent. There really isn’t anything we can point to within ourselves that we can confidently say is a core essence that will never change.
Let me be clear that this idea isn’t saying we don’t exist. If we walked into a wall, our bodies would bump against it and we’d feel pain. Yes we exist! Instead, what it’s really saying is that we’re constantly changing beings, always in flux. We’re not permanent, fixed entities.

We’re more like rivers. If you stood on a bank and watched a river, the water molecules passing by now would be different from what passed by a moment ago. So then how can we say it’s the same river? Giving it a fixed name and identity is just a convention that humans came up with so we can talk about it. The whole idea is a fiction.

At this point, you might argue that there are core aspects of our character that don’t seem to change over our lifetimes. OK, now we’re getting into some tricky territory. The problem is that as soon as we attach labels and concepts onto something, our egos kick in and start objectifying it, nailing it down, and spinning off stories to make something permanent out of it. And that’s what can get us into trouble.

Let me illustrate with an example of my own. Some of the traits that emerged very early in my life were my hard-working and self-motivated nature, and that I enjoyed accomplishing goals I set for myself. The various labels I took on included “high achiever,” “Type A personality,” “motivated by excellence

But labels are traps. With every one of them comes a whole string of stories, assumptions, and beliefs. And for the most part, they don’t match with reality. I took my labels to mean I should go after a high-paying, high-status professional job, become part of a “respectable” (i.e. conventional) community … you get the idea. But more than that, I felt I had to do my absolute best at everything I did. I was driven to excel at everything I took on because it made my ego feel good.

Many of you know my life story, so I’ll keep it short here — but basically, my house of cards came tumbling down hard in my thirties. I had so taken in my own stories of what being excellent meant that
I wasn’t seeing any of the signs around me that were telling me otherwise. My physical health collapsed and I fell into a depression.
So what did the idea of “no self” have to teach me about all this? First and foremost, drop the stories. In any given moment when I’m faced with a choice, look at what I’m bringing to the table RIGHT NOW. Not my concepts of who I think I am or should be, but the full, raw potential of what I have in this present moment. Of course, this doesn’t mean I disregard everything from my past. I have all that

I’ve learned from my life experiences, all the skills and knowledge that I’ve acquired, and all my personal strengths and talents. But the real question is, how are those things actually manifesting in me right now, and how do they apply to the situation at hand? It’s not about the degrees I have, or the idea that I strive toward excellence, or that I want to succeed. Those are my stories. What’s really present for me right now, and what’s the most positive choice I can make based on that?

The Buddha’s teaching of no-self is about letting go. Let go of our stories, or in short, our egos. Our egos think those stories bring us security, but in reality they act more like ill-fitting glasses that distort our vision. But at the same time, the teaching isn’t telling us to be passive and let the winds blow us around. It’s about being so completely immersed in and open to the present moment that we know clearly and fully what the situation is – including our own strengths and weaknesses. With that clarity of vision, we can choose to flow more in harmony with the way things really are by confidently relying on our known strengths, rather than fighting to hold up our version of a fool’s paradise.

This is where the practice of mindfulness is vitally important. At some point in our practice, we begin to let go of our grasping to uphold “me” as something opposed to “the world out there.” We start subtly shifting away from being dualistically MINDFUL OF various things to sensing that we are just awareness itself, inseparable from our surroundings. We stand naked just as we are, the pure potential present in us right now, and flow intimately with the world as it is. That’s the real gift of mindfulness — to feel so confident and in harmony with the world that we can trust and let go of our lives to it.

Back to that notion of character traits that don’t change much – yes, I still have many of those qualities that keep me motivated to do my best at everything I do. But my way of thinking about them has really changed. I now know I’m at my best when I stand back and let the world around me augment what talents and skills I have. I suppose it’s sort of like sailing. Rather than me doing a lot of rowing, I’m learning how to harness the wind so it propels me toward where I want to go.

So if there is no self, then who’s sitting here? I guess the answer is a growing, changing being. In my case, this being also wants to grow toward becoming wiser and more open-hearted, and so every moment, I try to make the best choice I can to point myself in that direction. Where am I going? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.
Because the more I make positive choices, the more strongly the flow of my life seems to move in the direction I aspire toward.
I find the Buddha’s teachings profoundly optimistic and hopeful, because it says that we can change, and we can choose how. And paradoxically, I’m finding that the more I take in the idea of no-self, the more I’m becoming who I really am.


Initially, this teaching of anatman was a rejection of the Vedic belief that everyone has an undying, unchanging essence called the atman (“Self”).

It was one more way to distinguish the teachings of the Buddha from the teachings of the Vedas. Instead of locating identity in something akin to a soul, the Buddha taught that there is only a sense of self. There is no permanent foundation, such as a soul, to consciousness and experience.


Oh my this post is getting very long. I should stop here! Anyway life is so interesting isn't it. I hope you are living it the way you like to live it with much happiness and joy.

Stay critical, but don't forget to empty your mind once in awhile and just enjoy the things around you. Don't ask how they got there, or what made them, or why. Just appreciate it first and ask later if you need to. Have a great day everyone

Now going back to chaos theory. As I have stated on the first post I have shared on this thread you will see similiarities in its teachings that go with buddhism. Not that you have to believe in it or anything, but just acknowledge that it has been thought about for a long time before scientists used mathematics. I think it was a guy named Lorenz that gave it some special attention at the time.

Dependent origination

The enlightenment of the Buddha was simultaneously his liberation from suffering (dukkha) and his insight into the nature of the Universe - particularly the nature of the lives of sentient beings (principally humans and animals). What the Buddha awakened to was the truth of dependent origination.

This is the understanding that any phenomenon exists only because of the existence of other phenomena in an incredibly complex web of cause and effect covering time past, time present and time future. This concept of a web is symbolized as a multidimensional spider's web on which lies an infinite amount of dew drops or jewels, and in these are reflected the reflections of all the other drops of dew ad infinitum.

Stated in another way, everything depends on everything else. A human being's existence in any given moment is dependent on the condition of everything else in the world at that moment, but in an equally significant way, the condition of everything in the world in that moment depends conversely on the character and condition of that human being.

Everything in the Universe is interconnected through the web of cause and effect such that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.

Because all things are thus conditioned and transient (anicca), they have no real independent identity (anatta) and thus do not truly exist, though to ordinary minds this appears to be the case. All phenomena are therefore fundamentally insubstantial and empty (sunya).

Wise human beings, those who "see things as they are" (yatha-bhuta-ñana-dassana), renounce attachment and clinging, transform the energy of desire into awareness and understanding, and eventually transcend the conditioned realm of form becoming Buddhas or Arhats.

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory or what I like to call as the butterfly effect.
The amount of difference in the starting points of the two curves is so small that it is comparable to a butterfly flapping its wings.
The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen, does.

This phenomenon, common to chaos theory, is also known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Just a small change in the initial conditions can drastically change the long-term behavior of a system. Such a small amount of difference in a measurement might be considered experimental noise, background noise, or an inaccuracy of the equipment. Such things are impossible to avoid in even the most isolated lab.

So as you can see there is similarity of the buddha’s teaching “dependent origin” and the scientific view “chaos theory”.

Okay maybe not exact for the scientists use a lot of numbers to their philosophy as the Buddhists just looked with their eyes at the nature presented to them.

Unfortunately, I don't have to. It's up to YOU - the one making the positive assertion - to prove it. You can't prove (to bring up the old argument) that invisible pink unicorns don't exist, yet it would be silly of me to expect you to do so. So your claim will remain unproven until you can come up with conclusive evidence that it is true.





Even if the proof is in Number Theory, the fact that it did happen makes the probability 100%. It happened. Regardless of why or how, it happened. Maybe we're one of an infinite number of Universes, which (I would think) greatly increases the chances that "100 random atoms would be related to each other in such a close-knit meaningful way." Either way, calculating the probability of something that already happened is futile. What's the probability that I would drink a flat beer today? It's a bad analogy I'm sure, but because it did happen the probability is 100% no matter what the mathematics say.

What happened? Order came from chaos? How do you know?

How do you know that there was ever chaos to begin with?

What was chaotic? The big bang?

You don't know that.

Even if you accept the big bang, all you know is that energy and atoms were scattered far and wide. But if the atoms (or the rules and laws that determine what their shapes and properties will be) could have always been in place.

If that's the case, then there was never any genuine 'chaos' at all.

So we don't know that it happened.

We don't know with certainty that there was ever a time when things were ever chaotic in the deepest sense and meaning of that.

So we can't really say whether it ever happened or not.

It's anybody's guess. Scientists don't know.

In fact, the best theory we have to date is Inflation Theory and Inflation Theory starts out by suggesing that this universe began as a 'quantum fluctuation' in the quantum field. So it presumes that the laws of Quantum Mechanics pre-existed the Big Bang. If that's true (it may or may not be true), but if it is true, then there's no reason to believe that there was ever any chaos at any point in the entire process. At least not on the scale of defining what this univese would ultimately be like.

So you can't just say, "It happened".

In truth, we don't know whether order came from chaos or not.