FORMALISM
OF
CATASTROPHE THEORY
Charles
P. Poole, Jr.
Ultimate
Reality and Meaning Vol. 7, 298-312 (1984).
The
present chapter provides background material for better understanding the other
chapter Theological Applications of Catastrophe Theory which is listed on the
sidebar. This second chapter provides
some insight into what constitutes the difference between life and non-life,
and what differentiates a human nature from an animal nature. In it we show how Catastrophe Theory is
supportive of arguments that a human fetus is indeed a human person and hence
cannot justifiably be aborted. This theory was
popular during the 1970's and 1980's, but is no longer in vogue for for
explaining natural phenomena.
The
present background chapter constitutes an article which appeared in the journal
Ultimate Reality and Meaning in 1984. It
provides a general description of the mathematical technique called Catastrophe
Theory, describes several of the most elementary catastrophes, and gives a few
examples of them. A table in the article
summarizes the Catastrophe Theory parameters of several dozen phenomena in
biology, economics, education, medicine, physical science, psychology, and sociology,which can be adequately
described by this formalism. The
article itself as it appeared in the journal is as follows:
CONTENTS
1.
Introduction
2.
Cusp Catastrophe
3.
Applications of Cusp
Catastrophe
4.
Higher Order Polynomial
Equations and the Butterfly Catastrophe
5.
Alternate rules of
Correspondence
6.
Catastrophe theory and
Reality
