Saturday, July 12, 2008

Pralayam,Chaos,Chaos theory

This is an extension of the discussion that me and robbie are having on the dasa post.The good thing about talking with knowledgeable people like robbie is that, the discussions expand your knowledge base and make you think clearly.I thought i will do this as a separate post so that more people can understand the chaos theory or at least my understanding of it and think for themselves.

This is what robbie told.
"If you remember the actual dasavatharam of vishnu, vishnu appears whenever there is chaos! "pralayam" in sanskrit. This chaos and the chaos theory are the same thing! the word chaos does not have a different meaning. The chaos in physics and the chaos we talk about in english are the same things!!! Vishnu appears whenever there is chaos in different avatars to restore order! This resonates well with the mathematical chaos theory! The movie is also made on those lines! through out the movie chaos is dealt with by different people for different reasons to restore order and finally the tsunami comes in causing more chaos and restoring order of some sort! There is a lot of significance and the movie does deal with the chaos theory!!!"

In shot what it means is, when there is pralayam lord vishnu comes as an avatar to restore order which is kind of similar to the avatars done by kamal in the movie.On the first glance, what ever he is saying might seem right.But if look closely and clearly you can see the difference.First of all

Is Pralayam, Literary Chaos and Chaos of Chaos theory all the same?.

From what i know(Would appreciate some info from sanskrit people),the word pralayam means a natural destruction of a great magnitude or destruction in general or something on that line.But pralayam does not necessarily mean chaos.chaos is confusion, disorderliness,A state where you cannot determine anything anymore.Chaos could be the result of a pralayam but chaos is not pralayam.

The difference between chaos and pralayam is the difference between confusion and destruction.Ok, lets forget the word pralayam.Lets take chaos and assume that lord vishnu comes at a time of chaos and restores order.Fine, that is mythology, compare it with the movie.These so called avatars, are they all created or formed to restore order in a time of chaos.what was the chaos and order that the bush character or tall muslim character or the japanese character, the naidu character,avatar singh or many other characters brought in.what is the chaos and what was the order that was restored??.If these characters , metamorphically mean avatars, why is one avatar fighting another avatar.Why is the fletcher character or the japanese character trying to kill the scientist character??. you can hypothesize even nagesh and K.R.Vijaya as an avatar, but you wont because kamal didn't play it.The only thing that makes the characters that come in the movie as avatar is the fact that kamal acted as that character.Other than that these characters don't have any strong definitions to be an avatar.If you analyze the movie, it does not satisfy both the scientific part or the mythological part.All it means is that Kamal is a bad script writer who presents a confused and unstructured script of a masala movie with lot of hype.Some people even go to the level of describing krishnaveni patti as a varaha avattar, because she shows that FISH symbol in a song.This is all kamal the script writer can come up with.So pathetic.BTW let me write the usual kamal fan response to this,i have heard the responses so many times before."In a masala movie this is all you can do, look at how rajini is making a movie, kamal is lot better".And where did the discussion start, comparing kamal with al pacino, marlon brando and the best director,screen play writer of the world.This is a usual kamal fan trick, start with the best of the world and in the end prove that he is lot better than rajini or vijaykanth.Basically a face saving measure , to cover the fact that , once again kamal sold BS to them.

Ok now lets come to the science part. Is the literary chaos same as the chaos of the chaos theory.NO, the chaos that is mentioned in chaos theory is deterministic chaos.Meaning chaos that arises with in a dynamic but deterministic system.Meaning a system that has some rules and regulation, a dynamic system that works within a well defined boundary.For example we know the initial conditions and the parameters and rules with which the dynamic model is operating.Deterministic chaos is a subset of Literary chaos but they are not the same.So how does this affect the movie?.

First of all there is no deterministic chaos in the movie.I mean what is chaos in the movie.Iam picking something random in the lines of what robbz quoted, just as an example,like the shaivaites vaishnavites fighting. Is that a deterministic chaos?? what order did the nambi character bring to that chaos,poor soul died without doing anything.In another time, another era, would another king would have done the same thing(moving the vishnu statue) with a different result??.If that would have been the case then it is deterministic chaos, otherwise it is a simple random event and that is what all the events in the movie are Random events.The reason why i referenced RUN LOLA RUN in my previous post was, as a movie that was based on chaos theory, the screenplay was brilliant and a genuine effort had been made to bring the story close to the real chaos theory.Dasa is an utter failure from a confused screen play writer, who wasn't sure what chaos theory was.

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Comments:
Well!! ahem! I am glad that you have given me special interest and will certainly respond to this my lord! Not every avatar that kamal takes in the movie is similar to vishnu's avatar. There are a few roles that fit and a few roles that do not. Let us remember that I never argued that dasavatharam is not a masala movie.
Pralayam the sanskrit word does mean destruction but it is also used in general colloquially as chaos. Vishnu came as avatars not just to prevent destruction but also to prevent chaos! That is why we call him the preserver. The english word chaos also certainly is derived from the mathematical chaos of the chaos theory. I hope that makes that clear and I am glad that you published my comment. Let us see what other people have to say about this. I would prefer a scientific argument with references if possible proving the word chaos is not derived from the mathematical chaos and also a scientific argument that pralayam also in general especially when it comes to dasavatharam can mean "peril" or even chaotic occurrences.
AMEN!
 
Well I forgot about addressing the nambi issue. Well Nambi does not bring any order but fights against the rule of the land at that time which certainly according to him and the vaishnavites was wrong. Nambi did not have to restore order all that he did was to fight for what was right. This is straight even from the Bhagvat gita if you know what I am talking about. The avatars of Kamal haasan were always fighting against some kind of wrong. The freedom of expression (nambi), top soil and environment (boovaragan), bioweapons (govind), crime (balram naidu) and finally even death(avatar singh). When we are arguing so much about these things isnt that itself proof about how cleverly certain concepts are mixed with masala in the movie? I will let other people do the talking and take some rest now.
 
no problem bro,
As i said before.If we are not strong on the boundaries we can fit anything into anything.If you relax the rules you can as well fit enga ooru pattukaran into string theory.Thing is what ever concept, or mythology you take, the story wont fit perfectly into it.All iam saying is what ever you think the movie is talking is mostly your knowledge and idea and not kamals.Kamal is a failure as a scriptwriter for trying to do too much in one story.
 
I accept one hundred percent what you say friend. Dasavatharam is one stupid movie. I've written a review about it in Tamil in my blog. If you have time check out. Though I didn't go into the chaos theory as much as you did, I've just highlighted how this movie doesn't even meet some basic necessities of a screen play.
 
athaana paarththaen .

For a change ->

1) I don't subscribe to the chaos theory that kamal describes. Kamal has a written a screenplay of his own understanding of chaos theory.Obviously its a layman view of it, so i don't think we should compare the actual chaos theory with this.

2) I did like this movie as an entertainer, although the make - ups irritated me.

3)But the chaos kamal is talking about is not something special. In every screenplay we have 'what happens if this character doesn't come on time?' . We can't say all of them are chaos theory .

4) I liked the agnostic view point of kamal in this movie more than avatars /chaos theory. We dont see movie for physics but fr chemistry , right ?
 
ramesh,
thanxs.will surely take a look at it.

ramki,
yes that is kind of what i have told also.Its just his own interpretation and nothing new in it.
 
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