Newtonian physics introduced the idea that the universe was made up of a mass of individual particles obeying fixed laws which absolutely determined the motion of each one. In principle, once the state of the universe was known at any one instant, then its state at all other times could be determined. At face value, there seemed no room for novelty, free will, or creativity. The aim of Newtonian Dynamics was to predict exactly what would happen, in numerical terms. The systems regarded as typical of the nature of the universe were those where explicit mathematical prediction was possible, such as the pendulum and the system consisting of a single planet in orbit round a star. 

Two things changed this: quantum theory and dynamical systems theory .Quantum theory revealed that, at least on the very small scale, things did not happen predictably. Imagine, for instance, the case of a beam of light passing through the lens of a pair of polaroid sunglasses. On a large scale, it seems as though the beam of light is predictably dimmed. On a small scale, however, the light is found to be made up of particles (called photons) each of which either goes through the lens unchanged, or does not get through at all, at random. 

In this particular case, random behaviour on a small scale averages out to deterministic behaviour on a large scale. But it need not be like that. Imagine a stream of water flowing over a weir. The slightest change in the water at the top of the weir gets magnified more and more and the water goes down, becoming a large change when it reaches the bottom. A dynamical system with this property is called dynamically unstable. People sometimes talk about the butterfly effect, in which a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a hurricane over India in two weeks time. If now one combines quantum theory with an unstable dynamical system, the random behaviour at a very small scale gets magnified to give a random behaviour of the whole system. Since most dynamical systems are in places unstable, this means that most of the universe is unpredictable.

An unpredictable universe is open to new things breaking in at every moment. Creativity and the action of free will now become possible.

Life is the process of the generation, reproduction and elaboration of forms/structures - whether we are talking at the biological level of social level. But what is "structure"? Do we require a notion of meaning in order to distinguish the structured from the unstructured? Is structure the same as "order", and does this make a link with entropy, which is traditionally thought of as "disorder" - or chaos? If that is so, does life violated the second law of thermodynamics, which says that entropy increases? Answers are now emerging to many of these questions, with dynamical systems theory lying at the heart of the ideas.

The philosophy of dynamical systems theory (which recognizes indeterminism as a practical reality, if not a fundamental one) is that pattern is more fundamental than exact specification. A system is understood through the patterns that it manifests. These can be expressed completely precisely, but they are not single numerical quantities. A well known example is a very simple model of convection in a fluid (such as the convection that drives the weather systems on our planet) described by a set of equations called the Lorentz equations. These produce a behaviour which shifts unpredictably between two different types of almost regular motions. This changes ones methodology. Instead of trying to predict exactly what is going to happen - the paradigm of control - one recognizes the pattern that is dominating at anyone time and operates within that pattern. Co-operation with an existing pattern replaces control and forcing into a pre-conceived goal. A new world view emerges no longer based on the ethics of domination.

As well as patterns forming in time, patterns can also form in space. The simplest "toy systems" to see this in are systems like those in the "game" of Life invented by the mathematician John Conway and the systems known as Langton's Ant. These, and many other more realistic models of processes from chemical reactions to gravitational collapse, suggest that pattern and structure can emerge very naturally from the simplest systems, if the conditions are right. Seemingly barren deterministic laws can be amazingly fertile, opening up the possibility of a universe in which creativity is the norm, not the exception.

Linking the two disciplines is the study of the non-equilibrium thermodynamics: the behaviour of physical systems with heat flowing constantly through them, which exhibit all sorts of structure formation. The paradigmatic experiment in the study of non-equilibrium thermodynamics is the observation of the onset of convection cells in a shallow liquid where heat is flowing upwards. When the temperature difference (and hence the heat flow) rises to become greater than a critical value, the system becomes unstable: any small perturbation will shift the state to one where convection is taking place. This is because at this stage convection results in a greater flux of heat, so that the transition to convection releases energy.  In mathematical terms, the emergence of the new structure of convection is loosely analogous to the onset of dynamic instability.  This motivates the idea that structure is associated with a transition to chaos. If the temperature difference increases further, boiling takes place, which is even more "chaotic". The unpredictable environment caused by greater chaos seems to have much to do with the development of life.