Below is the introduction to this exellent documentary from BBC4 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pv1c3]. A working knowledge of Chaos Theory is essential to the understanding of how the Minessence Values Framework gives insight into human behaviour--values' systems are the strange attractor that shapes the behaviour of individuals, teams, cultures and the institutions humanity have created.

Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.

It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?

In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?

It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.

Footnote:

This documentary, though an extremely good overview of chaos and self-organising systems, does not cover the important area of strange attractors. Strange attractors are crucially important as it is through them that we can understand the behaviour of complex systems be they the weather, the system of global economics, the spread of bushfires, two people in a relationship, a team, an organisation, society, etc. When dealing with human systems, their strange attractor is their values system. That is one of the main applications of our Values Inventory.

The video on the next page, though somewhat technical in parts, at least gives a glimpse of the nature of strange attractors.