This important study makes a convincing case for its thesis that the dramatic form of Shakespeare's plays corresponds to that of a natural system evolving to a more complex state while undergoing symmetry breaking. Drawing upon such key concepts of chaos theory as "global agency and self-similarity," the book constructs a methodology which illuminates many problematic aspects of agency in the selected comedies, tragedies, and histories it examines. Each of these genres is shown to reflect the paradoxical dynamics of a (...) chaotic system. This fresh -systems perspective- offers a serious challenge to the structuralist assumptions underlying many current literary approaches.". (shrink)

It has been questioned whether it is at all possible to give the term “probability” one uniform and consistent interpretation not merely in mathematics, statistics, evaluation of evidence, testing of hypotheses but also in any situation where we want to express a degree of belief. The question itself of assigning a probability to our belief in a scientific theory has raised important questions of an epistemological as well as mathematical nature.