Something as small the flutter of a butterfly's wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.

Question

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. Chaos Theory

Is the Universe a result of thousands of causes back and back to the point of singularity. And that the smallest event can cause a world disaster?

(Not a View held by myself, so no need to get angry!)

Is Life today just the result of millions of years of evolution? Are we at the end of a long line of causes?
Is freewill a dillusion? Our we the product of causes and their efffects on us?

Answer 1

It was meant to illustrate the fact that all things are results of 'cause and effect'. Take for instance your presence in the world! Thousands of years ago, someone met someone else and had a child or children together. And here you are!
My own grandmother lost her first husband when he combed his hair, nicked a wart on his forehead, and died of blood poisoning the next day. A year later, she met and married my grandfather, and here I am. One stroke of a careless comb led to a whole string of changed possibilities. Every object, person or event is a result of a similar 'cause'. From the brightest star in the sky to that fly you just brushed off your bacon sandwich. Right back to which way a certain particle flew off from the singularity you mentioned, during the 'Big Bang'.

Answer 2

Chaos theory is pretty involved.
The idea is that the flutter of a butterflys wings (a tiny, almost insignificant, input) can be the difference between a normal weather, and a hurricane (a large range of output possibilities), but there are barriers.....there has to be an unstable system and energy needs to come from somewhere for the hurricane to happen. A butterfly flapping it's wings does not create the energy to blow down a tree, or tear the roof off of a house.

Answer 3

Chaos theory exists, although most weather patterns are rarely on a knife edge of developing or not and need that extra breeze of a butterfly to develop. but the theory stands.

Evolution means something evolves over time, rather than instant appears or changes form.
Reproduction creates 'allegedly' random changes, you could not predict with total accuracy the height, eye and colours, body type of your child. If that child become extreme successful either physically and mental, everyone want him to father their children then his gene would live on, and those characteristics would live on.

So in the wild if you have a genetic mutation that positively enhances an animals fishes plants etc... chance of survival and reproduction than it will evolve!!

There are too many variables in life for life to anything other than random and evolutionary. With modern life so dependant on mechanical means, we have no control, you can not predict when a car part would break making you late for work and missing that fatal car crash etc.. Or the power going off etc....

Answer 4

Personally, and I do my best speaking pesonally I find!, I think the 'butterfly wings' notion is just a metaphor for actions having consequences.

I think chaos (insanity?) exists but I also believe wise actions
will lead you to a calmer life that you are more in control of.

Ultimately, I believe you are asking "do my actions, however
small, make a difference?" and I believe the answer to that is yes.
(If I am at peace with myself then the world IS more peaceful
too.)

But can we predict what effect those actions will have? No, I
don't think we can. And if we could, we would then be in
a position to pick and choose our actions. Which is not the
point of actions having consequences.

Bottom line: just be good (or as good as you can be!) ;-)

Answer 5

I believe in the chaos theories but I don't let them rule my life.

Mathematically it is very interesting to study cause and effect but the world is so complex that we will never be able to simulate or predict it.

In the past small events have triggered major events in the world. Just imagine if Hitler's mum had had a miscarriage. The cause of history would have been totally changed. Maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.... Interesting thoughts. Very often found in the "what-if" litterature.

Answer 6

Remember that scene when Keifer Sutherlands dad,Donald, was sitting in the bathtub with Pinto's girlfriend after smoking a joint and he could see a whole other universe under his thumbnail in Animal House? That was cool.

Answer 7

If a Butterfly can start a Typhoon, what can an eagle start?

Answer 8

yes this is called the butterfly effect it,s an amazing piece of info (it,s also been said that the fuzzy bit on ur tv is actually the start of the big bang all those millions of years ago crazy ****)

Answer 9

i strangely enough hold both theories
that we have free will but are also affected by cause and affect...
that we can choose how to react when there is effect , that we can choose to create new effects
so i think free will is more about the choices we make when dealing with situations

Answer 10

well i know i didn*t come from a damn monkey lol so i*m not so sure about how far the evolution thing goes..but yeah i think we are all just a produce of causes and effects. but i don*t think we are the end of the line.. we*ll effect the future generations just like the previous generations did us. good question though