Van Eenwyk (1997, p. 54) concludes by stating that strange attractors “are the epitome of contradiction: infinitely recognizable, ultimately unpredictable.”
Patterns and Fractals: it is here where we find the presence (or non-presence) of nothingness. The never-repeating yet recognizable “patterns” found in the visual production of complex systems are called “fractals.” They are to be found in the patterning of structures in pine tree trunks, limbs, and needles, in the patterns among rivers that disperse after flowing into a flat delta. Fractals are also found in the patterning of employee behaviors in an established, traditional organization (Bergquist, 1993).
In essence, what appears is a transformation from nothing (random, sense-less) to something (order, pattern, meaning). Order is recruited from disorder into order. Attractor basins are formed, bringing about stability in an environment that appears chaotic and unpredictable. These complex attractors and attractor basins are indeed “strange”—as is the appearance (or nonappearance) of nothingness at any moment in our life or in any emerging pattern or surprising (and often beautiful) replication in the world we are experiencing.
Symbols
As noted by Jung and Neumann, the challenge of nothingness, and more generally, the experience of the numinous is often addressed and managed through use of symbols (as well as the dogma and rituals of religious practice). It is often through symbolic representations that we approach the seemingly elusive and unapproachable condition of nothingness. We turn again to Paul Tillich to help us better understand the condition of nothingness.
Essentials of Symbols: specifically, Paul Van Eenwyk (1997, Pg. 71) quotes Paul Tillich (extracting a list from Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, pp. 41f). Tillich describes six essential elements of symbols that I suggest are related to the representation of nothingness. First, symbols point beyond themselves (to that elusive condition called nothingness—the Void). Second, symbols participate in that toward which they point (symbols are themselves nothing or at least not much—just an image without explicit meaning or purpose). Third, symbols open up levels of reality otherwise closed to us (this “reality” ironically being the “nonreality” or nothingness).
Fourth, according to Tillich, symbols unlock dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality (the condition of nothingness aligns with and resonates with gaps in our own self-knowledge and our own “soul,” thus making nothingness and nonbeing that much more numinostically frightening). Firth, symbols cannot be produced intentionally (they often appear nonexistent until they suddenly emerge from nothingness to something that is apparent). Finally, symbols grow autonomously (self-organizing). And they die when they can no longer produce a response (this response seems to emanate from an unknown source or from nothingness).
Van Eenwyk (1997, Pg. 71) offers his own description of the role played by symbols: “. . . [S]ymbols are not so much entities to be interpreted as they are dynamics to be experienced. As transition makers, they have their roots in both the transformer and the transformed.” As Tillich suggests, the symbols themselves are without substance; they are substance-less experiences. The physical manifestation of the symbol is transformed into something that is experienced rather than “seen.”
