Customer Reviews

Tao of Chaos: Merging East and West

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I'm a PhD mathematician with a few publications in "chaos theory" and also some experience researching in other areas Katya touches on in this book, such as molecular biology. While she plays fast and loose with terminology sometimes, I think she also makes a lot of really interesting points. I don't care much for the I Ching, but her analysis of the parallels between the I Ching and DNA are fascinating, and give some insights into the mathematical structure of both the I Ching and DNA. If she were a little more careful in her treatment of science, this could have been a five-star book. But I'll give it four stars for inventiveness and creativity. Unlike most authors writing books at the science-spirituality boundary, she's not just spouting the same old platitudes; she actually has some new things to say, albeit most of them are speculative from the scientific point of view.

Katya Walters discusses some very interesting parallels between Eastern philosophies, art, and modern science. I think this book opened my eyes to how almost everything can be understood as a rhythmic process of polar opposites. It really enabled me to understand the rhythm of things in nature including ouselves as humans. You can read an even better and interesting account of rhythm in nature (including human nature) in The Ever-Transcending Spirit by Toru Sato. Sato's book has taken this idea and applied it to a wider variety of human experiences relating to development, consciousness, and human interaction and interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless, Walters' book is still a very interesting account on the general rhythm of chaos and order and well worth a read!

Anyone who doesn't like this book does not understand it. "The answer is simply as your level of understanding makes possible", Star Trek. As a student of physics and the I Ching I could not believe someone else had been that deep in the well of Chaos and the I ching. I applaud Katya and encourage any deeply inquiring mind to check this one out. Thin threads connect great things.

As a student of eastern religions, I found the book to be a little heavy on the mathematical lingo, and a little difficult to fathom as I do not claim to be a mathemetician with a clear understanding of chaotic systems and their behavior. However, the comparison made between the I Ching and DNA is one that is intriging and is gaining wide interest in "eastern" intellectual circles. For more insights into the I Ching/DNA link, I also recommend Terence McKenna's "Invisible Landscape" and also his book "The Archaic Revival".

This books explores the connections between East and West, trying to weave a thread through an incredible amount of seemingly unrelated topics. On the surface, the book seems to be a tour-de-force of knowledge, on such wide topics I-Ching, dreams, chaos theory, genetics and DNA, atomic structure, etc. Unfortunately, the authorâ(tm)s knowledge of her material appears to be extremely poor. The thread of connections weaving the material is so thin it is possible to connect anything with anything using such vague relations.

For example, the main point of connection between the I-Ching and genetics is the simple fact that both can be described using a binary number system. The way she presents it though, is as if it is an amazing discovery. For example, there are 4 acids in DNA that pair together in groups of 3 pairs. This she symbolizes by the hexagrams of the I-Ching. Note that there are 4 possible ways to make the âaetranslationâ between the symbols. Later, she shows how if DNA changes to RNA, we get a different hexagram for each combination. Again, there are 4 different ways of mapping this change. So 4 x 4 is 16, i.e., each one of her RNA groups can have 16 different I-Ching hexagrams mapped to it depending on how she chooses the rules. After all this, she presents precisely 16 examples of how the meaning of a certain hexagram is similar to the biological function of the corresponding RNA group. Not so coincidental, given she had 16 choices, so she could have started from those examples and worked her way backwards to produce the rules.

The style of this book is extremely annoying, especially if you are familiar with the mathematics and science. As another reviewer points out, she redefines many scientific terms to meanings that are sometimes contrary to their scientific definitions. Very simple mathematical tricks are announced with great pomp, as if they are some major discoveries, while many of the more complicated connections are not explained very well. Speculation is merged into the text with little evidence. The book wouldnâ(tm)t be so bad a read, at least as an imaginative study, if it were not so repetitive, a little clearer, and if it didnâ(tm)t redefine the terminology from standard usage.

All in all, this book is a real waste of time and money. For a much better book on east-west connections, try âaeThe Tao of Physicsâ by Fritjof Capra, well worth the money you pay for it compared to this. The Tao of Physics is packed with meaningful material, and the author goes to great pains to draw deep connections and explain difficult concepts in simple language. If you want to learn more about the I-Ching and Eastern philosophy, get a copy of the original I-Ching and read it for yourself. Theâ Tao of Poohâ/âaeTe of Pigletâ series by Benjamin Hoff also is a great, 5-star introduction. If you want to learn more about the science of chaos, get a REAL science book, something like "Chaos and Fractals" by Peitgen, Jurgens, and Saupe, which is designed to be read with or without the mathematics, depending on your preference and ability.

Having formally studied nonlinear mechanics and chaos, I can confidently tell you that the author is just spewing popular buzzwords with absolutely no clue as to their meaning. To make matters worse, she proudly invents her own definitions for words such as "nonlinear" that already have meanings in common usage. Of course, once she's redefined several key words to fit her needs, the author finds wonderful similarities that aren't really there. My knowledge of eastern philosophy isn't great, but I strongly suspect the author's knowledge in this area to be similarly weak. In my opinion, the author is attempting to make a buck by imitating an excellent and far superior book, Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics".