Quote:
Originally posted by Beestie
Furthermore, I do not accept the premise that the absence of the sneeze prevents the hurricane because it presupposes something that was never established - that the sneeze caused it in the first place. And the weakness of chaos theory, at least in this example, is that it is powerless to prove me wrong or even suggest why I might be. Not to be overly dramatic about it but chaos theory - at least what I have heard/read so far is little more than a repackaging of "cause and effect" but with enough hot air to float a blimp. Its predictive value is zero as far as I can tell and that is, after all, what theories are supposed to be for.
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Yes, it is impossible to say a butterfly caused a hurricane, but it is a thought experiment that demonstrates how chaotic systems work. Taking two systems with almost identical initial conditions, you will get vastly diverging results because over time differences
magnify rather than
dissipate. Comparing two 'systems', one in which a butterfly flaps its wings, and another in which it doesn't, is a cool way of saying these two systems are identical- with the exception of the tiniest infinitesimal difference.
And chaos theory has been shown to happen in weather systems, using less variables than the near infinite of the real weather system of the earth. Scientists can run identical simulations over and over with perfect accuracy using computers. It is real easy to show that changing one variable a tiny amount will result in a vastly different end result.
Weather is unstable. Bruce just explained it really well. Imagine a ball perfectly balanced on the top of a smooth hill. The slightest wind in any direction will force the ball to fall in any number of directions. All the kinetic energy of that ball is released by a tiny push.