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Determinism and the butterfly effect

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Lets get some quick definitions:

These were just grabbed real quick feel free to add to or take away if you truly think something is wrong with the common opinion towards that or those definitions.

Determinism: "the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition and behaviour, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences"

Butterfly effect: "the phenomenon whereby a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere"

For responding to this post would appreciate it if the discussion did not wander towards other allegations against determinism etc... but be maintained as the debate between the compatibility of that which I have presented.

It would seem to me that some people would believe these to be mutually exclusive, atleast when we are talking about millions of years or more. The issue then being that they state that and walk away without proving or atleast suggesting another view as to why they are mutually exclusive. It would seem to me that by common sense they go hand and hand and that the onus of proof then is on the person who disagrees.

On a personal note I think the reason that some people disagree is not based on factual evidence but merely based on emotions that have created a sense of intimidation.

Here is a quick and common example of how the two terms relate: A butterfly flaps its wings which creates small winds that go on to create larger ones and which effect other things and 2000 years down the road it is seen that the flaps lead to the eruption of a volcano.

If the two terms are taken to be true and unified then if calculating the effects of the future by determinism you would need to, for example, put into the calculation the number of hairs on your leg, their density, exact positions, length, color etc... of everyone and every being in the world as well as all other variables to their pedantically long qualities.

Some may say that one hair not going to make the difference, that it is events like volcanoes and larger things that effect the future.

I think the problem there is where do you and how do you draw the line between a significant effect and some uneffective variable. Take for example an apple that was picked up off the ground by somone and eaten. What this person did not know was that right as they began to eat the apple had by a single nanosecond passed its point of ripeness (if there is such a thing) into its moldy stage. This person then became a little bit sick and unbeknownst to them they were pregnant and this apple caused the death of the fetus. There are very few stages in that example but it can be seen how a very small change can lead to a very large outcome. This example could be drawn out much farther with taking into account what would have happened had the child survived. Well he could have done something as wonderful as cure cancer or as horrible as kill thousands which would then lead on to many other causes etc...

Also in response to the person who only believes that large things can have an effect. Why does a volcano have such power to 'change'? Well it is large and effects alot very quickly. But you would agree that the volcano is made up of very small parts (molecules). What are the hairs on your leg? "very small parts". And what happens if all hairs in the entire world would all instantanously cease to exist? I don't know but I'm sure that the effects would be catastrophic. Wouldn't you also agree that the deviation of a small path of lava down through a village could be the factor that decides the survival of one person possibly?

Some reference quantum theory when trying to discount determinism. You can not disprove something by throwing a theory at it. Is it too much to ask that you first prove the theory then go from there. I have a theory that the stocks which I have researched will go up over the next few months in share price. I may in the end be right but I am not going to go around guarenteeing people growth if they invest in this company.

Ofcourse people will reply "Determinism is a theory." If you subscribe to the belief that all things in life are material then determinism would seem to me to be a truism. Quantum mechanics will one day be found out to be deterministic or not. Though if it is NOT deterministic for whatever reason people are not going to just stop there they are going to find out why it is not deterministic and how something not deterministic works and exists etc...

yep just my thoughts

@click here,

Is anything that predictable with all the variables that can occur? a million butterflies flap their wings every day not every one or even one will result in a mild breeze let alone a tornado.A million children die ever year unnecessarily but there will always be one child that grows up to change the course of history.I find it is just pondering on what or could happen given certain chains of events that have or might result in a classical event. It is an exercise in musing...

@click here,

Hey xris

I tracked you down , only kidding. :bigsmile:

I don't buy the unprovable butterfly effect. But of course cause and effect does operate on the macro as well as micro level

I really do not think that the future is set in stone. How much of human history would have differed if some people of great influence had never been born.

Hitler, Jesus, Buddha, Confuses, are just a few. Here I don't think it is a butter fly flapping its wings, it is a huge winged monster

Are you a fatalist?

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

Hey xris

I tracked you down , only kidding. :bigsmile:

I don't buy the unprovable butterfly effect. But of course cause and effect does operate on the macro as well as micro level

I really do not think that the future is set in stone. How much of human history would have differed if some people of great influence had never been born.

Hitler, Jesus, Buddha, Confuses, are just a few. Here I don't think it is a butter fly flapping its wings, it is a huge winged monster

Are you a fatalist?

I dont know, i used to believe that we can make our own future and it was or could not be predicted.Life gave me a shock when i dreamed the lottery numbers.Ive be trying ever since to come to terms with this revelation.I think certain events are inevitable and we have no control over them but its how we react to them that give us our free will.Its a bit like getting on a train, the journey is inevitable but what we do on the train is restricted but is ours to decide.Jumping off would be like committing suicide your journey is not complete.How we treat our fellow passengers etc...but the journey will have its accidents its horrors its fellowships and eventually will end..Just my thoughtful answers for my predicament..Xris

@xris,

xris

Did you really dream of the correct lotto numbers, amazing if you did, just shows just when we think we understand something, life throws us a curve ball that confounds all of what we might have held as truth.

Maybe there is no truth, at the quantum level of existence , one must forget human logic and try to rely on probability

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

xris

Did you really dream of the correct lotto numbers, amazing if you did, just shows just when we think we understand something, life throws us a curve ball that confounds all of what we might have held as truth.

Maybe there is no truth, at the quantum level of existence , one must forget human logic and try to rely on probability

The pity of it was Alan i did not believe i had..if we learn anything from life is we dont know anything..

@click here,

Click here;
"Some reference quantum theory when trying to discount determinism. You can not disprove something by throwing a theory at it. Is it too much to ask that you first prove the theory then go from there. I have a theory that the stocks which I have researched will go up over the next few months in share price. I may in the end be right but I am not going to go around guarenteeing people growth if they invest in this company."

On the contrary; i assume no one is comfortable of quantum theory(even for the pioneers of this idea) and i believe the burden lies on disproving it. To disprove it; probably an understanding of; or a formula(or a set of mathematical functions); has to be deduced to predict the movement of particles of at the most macro level.Hence, technically the failure to deduce such a formula or understanding assumes the validity of its theory.

@click here,

Welcome all the way from Malasia

Originally posted by_n_conquer

Quote:

Click here;
"Some reference quantum theory when trying to discount determinism. You can not disprove something by throwing a theory at it. Is it too much to ask that you first prove the theory then go from there. I have a theory that the stocks which I have researched will go up over the next few months in share price. I may in the end be right but I am not going to go around guarenteeing people growth if they invest in this company."

On the contrary; i assume no one is comfortable of quantum theory(even for the pioneers of this idea) and i believe the burden lies on disproving it. To disprove it; probably an understanding of; or a formula(or a set of mathematical functions); has to be deduced to predict the movement of particles of at the most macro level.Hence, technically the failure to deduce such a formula or understanding assumes the validity of its theory

.

Quantum theory and the use of quantum mechanics is based largely on probability, logic and certainty are not really part of quantum mechanics. But correct me if I am wrong, I am no expert on that subject, if in fact there is an expert.

The great American physicist, Richard Feyman once said "no one understands quantum mechanics"

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;56590 wrote:

Welcome all the way from Malasia

Originally posted by_n_conquer

.

Quantum theory and the use of quantum mechanics is based largely on probability, logic and certainty are not really part of quantum mechanics. But correct me if I am wrong, I am no expert on that subject, if in fact there is an expert.

The great American physicist, Richard Feyman once said "no one understands quantum mechanics"

Neither am i an expert, but thats the whole idea, as you said; its never about logic and certainty.Its pure probability/unpredictability.
Probably thats why Feyman said no one can understand it since the whole concept of quantum m is about not understanding the movement of atomic level particles as according to the conventional set of laws.

@click here,

Seems to me that a small change in any complex system will produce other small changes. A change on a certain scale will produce changes only on a similiar scale.

And the current state of All the changes on a certain scale will most likely determine the next change on the next higher scale.

does that make sense?

@Phosphorous,

Phosphorous wrote:

Seems to me that a small change in any complex system will produce other small changes. A change on a certain scale will produce changes only on a similiar scale.

And the current state of All the changes on a certain scale will most likely determine the next change on the next higher scale.

does that make sense?

It makes real sense!

I agree the butterfly effects postulates that a butterfly flapping its wings in China might cause a tornado in America, I don't accept that as a truth, because it is unprovable by scientific methods and also makes no sense to me

I like you idea that it takes large colossal effects to produce other large effects

However, we should remember that it took just one shot of a bullet that killed Arch Duke Ferdinand, the final trigger, of a number of events at the time, to escalated into the great first world war

This one death resulted untold dying ten million I think from memory.

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

I agree the butterfly effects postulates that a butterfly flapping its wings in China might cause a tornado in America, I don't accept that as a truth, because it is unprovable by scientific methods and also makes no sense to me.

It only takes one grain of rice to tip the scale and that is provable by scientific methods.

Every variable has an effect. Newtons third law of motion would show that the butterfly's flap causes a disturbance in the air surrounding the wings.

The butterfly effect does not state that 1 butterfly is soley responsible for the creation of a tornado. It is stating that that butterfly could be the one grain of rice to tip the scale. It is by definition true.

@click here,

The laws of logic ask has it ever happened? The laws of coincidence make the odds so unbelievably high, its like making comments like a spitting in the sea will drown a thousand men.Its only because it sounds romantically possible that it has any credence.Certain mundane occurrences can produce extraordinary events, we all know this by history, but a butterfly flapping his wings ,how bizarre..

@click here,

Something doesn't have to have happened for it to be logically possible. You haven't replied yet to this post I am typing but you can logically do so.

The butterfly is just an example.

What are the odds of you flipping a coin and having it land on its side 10 million times in a row? Very low but the fact that a coin can land on its side just once means that it could also do so 10 million times in a row.

If you had a precise enough scale you could measure that one molecule is enough to tip a scale from balance to unbalance. Every molecule that makes up the combined weight on each side must be accounted for. Every molecule is responsible for the weight that it contributes to the measuring. All small variables add up to larger variables. A butterfly's flap is that extra molecule on the scale.

@click here,

click here wrote:

Something doesn't have to have happened for it to be logically possible. You haven't replied yet to this post I am typing but you can logically do so.

The butterfly is just an example.

What are the odds of you flipping a coin and having it land on its side 10 million times in a row? Very low but the fact that a coin can land on its side just once means that it could also do so 10 million times in a row.

If you had a precise enough scale you could measure that one molecule is enough to tip a scale from balance to unbalance. Every molecule that makes up the combined weight on each side must be accounted for. Every molecule is responsible for the weight that it contributes to the measuring. All small variables add up to larger variables. A butterfly's flap is that extra molecule on the scale.

It logically possible that an elephant can fly at some time in future but i would not put money on it, just like you would not bet your life on the coin landing once on its head, let alone a million times.I find these poetic musing on extremely unlikely events irrational.Of course its possible but extremely almost to the point of redicoulously impossible...A million to one i dont think so, more like a for every grain of sand in the universe to one.

@xris,

xris wrote:

It logically possible that an elephant can fly at some time in future but i would not put money on it, just like you would not bet your life on the coin landing once on its head, let alone a million times.I find these poetic musing on extremely unlikely events irrational.Of course its possible but extremely almost to the point of redicoulously impossible...A million to one i dont think so, more like a for every grain of sand in the universe to one.

Ok so you've come to grasp with the fact that it is possible that a butterfly's flap could be the grain of rice that tips the scale to with the combination of other variables lead to ones death at the passing of a tornado 1000 years in the future. You accept that the chances are extremely high but you do accept that the butterfly's flap could be the scale tipper?

@click here,

click here wrote:

Ok so you've come to grasp with the fact that it is possible that a butterfly's flap could be the grain of rice that tips the scale to with the combination of other variables lead to ones death at the passing of a tornado 1000 years in the future. You accept that the chances are extremely high but you do accept that the butterfly's flap could be the scale tipper?

Do you accept that a pig could fly, grow wings and fly?do you think its possible that the spaghetti monster created the universe? do you think the leaf that has fallen past my window will be the final blow that will crack the earth in two?

@xris,

xris wrote:

The laws of logic ask has it ever happened? The laws of coincidence make the odds so unbelievably high, its like making comments like a spitting in the sea will drown a thousand men.Its only because it sounds romantically possible that it has any credence.Certain mundane occurrences can produce extraordinary events, we all know this by history, but a butterfly flapping his wings ,how bizarre..

I agree where or when have a butterfly or a million or a butterflies or a billion butterflies flapping their wings, ever caused a major event?. The wings of the the butteries are not flapping as a synchronising whole, or in harmony if you like, they just cancel each other out and nothing happens to upset nature

Has the last grain on a camels back theory ever being proved? It is just common sense to me that a single butterfly or a billion butterflies cant cause a torn ado somewhere else, in real life is just does not happen

And this something stepping on an ant in the primordial past would result in huge changes in evolution , is also conjecture and cannot be proved by any scientific method

These ideas reside deep in the formulae of extreme mathematics, but do not effect our lives in any way.

Computer modelling using this very advanced mathematics, could show the grain of rice effect, because in a computer model you can simulate a virtual time machine and advance millions of years, but this is mathematics, not the reality we have to worry

click here just my opinion , I am not disregarding what you said just countered with my take on the topic Peace

I believe, however, that one decision by a human can extrapolate into a huge event or war, like the assassination of Arch duke Ferdinand

@xris,

xris wrote:

Do you accept that a pig could fly, grow wings and fly?do you think its possible that the spaghetti monster created the universe? do you think the leaf that has fallen past my window will be the final blow that will crack the earth in two?

Did you read the presupposition stated at the beginning of this thread? We are looking at the relationship between determinism and chaos theory.

@click here,

If nobody mentioned it yet: Google for "Determined chaos", that's the scientific keyword for what you mean - small influences on a system cause great changes.

EDIT: "Determined chaos" doesn't seem to be so common in english, my mistake..."chaos theory" might be more useful. The bottom line: There are theoretical physical systems that are determined but doesn't follow a rational waveform.

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