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Beestie · 06-02-2004, 01:03 PM

Great. Let's keep it here, CB.

I thought of two other problems with your examples that I touched on but did not address directly. In the butterfly example, something small (a butterfly sneeze or whatever) is deemed to have caused something large (a hurricane). In the domino example, the first domino falling causes the last domino to fall but the events are of equal magnitude. Connecting the first and last domino is much more realistic than connecting the sneeze with the hurricane. No one has addressed my concern that the initial small event continues to increase in magnitude (conveniently without interruption or interference) throught the system from beginning to end so as to terminate in something as big as a hurricane. I throw a rock in a lake and the way of the world is that the waves get smaller as it propogates. Why? Because the elements it encounters require energy to change their state - the energy of the rock hitting the water is slowly dissapated by creating the waves until enough water is encountered to have used up all the energy the rock had and the waves disappear completely. The sneeze causing a hurricane argues nearly the opposite. The sneeze actually has to pick up steam as it ripples through the world. Now, waves can be reinforced as they travel through a medium by other activity also in the medium. But, that is really stretching it - hence my invocation of common sense to put an end to the endless chain of increasingly preposterous suppositions necessary to connect a sneeze to a hurricane.

Additionally, in the three body problem, another way to demonstrate my unwillingness to accept it as an example of chaos can be illustrated by the difference between temperature and heat. Raise the termperature of one atom by one degree and the increase in heat is negligible as are the effects of the increase in heat. However, raise the temperature of every atom in the universe by one degree and the heat gain is nearly immeasurable. So, the "small change produces a big event" idea seems to hold but what is being called a small change is really a big change. A butterfly sneeze is a small change - one atom's temperature increase is a small change. In addition, an error in an initial setting is a factual error - the reality of the situation did not vary - only our understanding of it. The effect of the error has a direct and instantaneous effect on the outcome. The sneeze however, is but one event out of a trillion that help determine the weather.

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.

06-02-2004, 01:03 PM	#39
Beestie -◊\|≡·∙■·∙≡\|◊- Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Parts unknown. Posts: 4,081	Great. Let's keep it here, CB. I thought of two other problems with your examples that I touched on but did not address directly. In the butterfly example, something small (a butterfly sneeze or whatever) is deemed to have caused something large (a hurricane). In the domino example, the first domino falling causes the last domino to fall but the events are of equal magnitude. Connecting the first and last domino is much more realistic than connecting the sneeze with the hurricane. No one has addressed my concern that the initial small event continues to increase in magnitude (conveniently without interruption or interference) throught the system from beginning to end so as to terminate in something as big as a hurricane. I throw a rock in a lake and the way of the world is that the waves get smaller as it propogates. Why? Because the elements it encounters require energy to change their state - the energy of the rock hitting the water is slowly dissapated by creating the waves until enough water is encountered to have used up all the energy the rock had and the waves disappear completely. The sneeze causing a hurricane argues nearly the opposite. The sneeze actually has to pick up steam as it ripples through the world. Now, waves can be reinforced as they travel through a medium by other activity also in the medium. But, that is really stretching it - hence my invocation of common sense to put an end to the endless chain of increasingly preposterous suppositions necessary to connect a sneeze to a hurricane. Additionally, in the three body problem, another way to demonstrate my unwillingness to accept it as an example of chaos can be illustrated by the difference between temperature and heat. Raise the termperature of one atom by one degree and the increase in heat is negligible as are the effects of the increase in heat. However, raise the temperature of every atom in the universe by one degree and the heat gain is nearly immeasurable. So, the "small change produces a big event" idea seems to hold but what is being called a small change is really a big change. A butterfly sneeze is a small change - one atom's temperature increase is a small change. In addition, an error in an initial setting is a factual error - the reality of the situation did not vary - only our understanding of it. The effect of the error has a direct and instantaneous effect on the outcome. The sneeze however, is but one event out of a trillion that help determine the weather. 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. __________________ ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦