The Butterfly Effect

[Guest]

The butterfly effect, for those of you that don't know, is a "theory" or just a general way of thinking, that suggests that everything, and by that I mean EVERY SINGLE THING, you do at this very moment, will affect your future in an impactful way. For example, going out at this very moment you might meet a friend and go out with him/her somewhere else and completely miss your destination, but if you went out 10 seconds later you would have missed him/her and would have just continued your way to your initial spot. So it's about a small, seemingly non-existant thing causing a chain of occurences that will eventually change the outcome of your life in general.

This also goes for time traveling. It is said that if you go back in time and kill a single human, the entire world could be different now.

 

While I do find this theory very interesting and to a certain degree true, I think it still does have some flaws. One could go crazy if they thought about every thing they'd do and how it would impact their lives, and it wouldn't even be accurate.

 

What are your guys's thoughts about all this? I'm up for a debate :^)

 

P.S. Sorry if my english is utterly broken, not my native language.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Guest

[Techno Universal 2,575]

Now to be honest it's a very real thing as Microsoft started with Bill

Gates seeing the first consumer available computer in a magazine in 1970 as a 15 year old. He then got one but when he took it home he found out that it was so new that nobody had bothered to write software for it as all the computer was at the time was a box with lights and switches on it and it was an extremely complex process to even use it for the simplest things at the time like doing math calculations. He then spent months creating a interface system that could make use of it extremely easy and fast. The result of this was the first widely used operating system called BASIC. This OS was the key to creating more usable desktop PCs and all computers from the first MAC in 1975 to the creation of Microsoft DOS in 1985 used their own versions of BASIC like the OS had a different look on every PC like the Commodore OS is actually BASIC in the core except it just has a different graphical appearance. Then Bill Gates had his worldwide popularity explode in 1985 when he officially founded Microsoft and released Microsoft DOS. So in the end without him discovering the first publicly available PC that was only available in a couple of states in the USA at the time Microsoft would of never existed and Apple would of been completely alone in this major market and would be dominating the world today. Plus even if Bill wasn't lucky enough to live in one of the states that the computer was available in Microsoft would also end up never been created.

[Totally Nyx 36,062]

I love to see the butterfly effect in action in stories involving time travel, but really that's just my love of fictional worlds and thought-provoking stories. I believe every choice you make changes your future and, depending on the choice, the future of the human race. But there's also no real point thinking about that when deciding what to do. How can you know that by leaving to go somewhere 10 seconds later you might meet your future husband/wife, or that by leaving just 5 seconds after that instead you might be involved in an accident and die. There's infinite possibilities, but dwelling on them doesn't really help make a decision as they're for the most part out of your control.

[Once In A Blue Moon 895]

 

 

I think it still does have some flaws. One could go crazy if they thought about every thing they'd do and how it would impact their lives

 

That's not a flaw of the theory (which I understand to be a corollary of cause and effect) so much as an illustration of why you can't plan for too specific a situation. It's not too big of a deal though - I may not have an eye-patch for eye-patch emergencies, but I do have a first aid kit for minor injury emergencies.

 

 

 

Microsoft would of never existed and Apple would of been completely alone in this major market and would be dominating the world today.

 

Or we might all be using Spectrums. Without Microsoft there might have been another company (perhaps one absorbed by Microsoft during its rise to prominence.) That's the big implication of the Butterfly Effect - removing one element from the system (in this case Microsoft) leads to a chain of outcomes that produces a substantially different future. Or not, possibly - there will be a change, but possibly not a substantial one.

 

Where the Butterfly Effect is most pronounced is in systems where small changes to initial conditions lead to markedly different outcomes - that's Chaos Theory.

[Guest]

That's not a flaw of the theory (which I understand to be a corollary of cause and effect) so much as an illustration of why you can't plan for too specific a situation. It's not too big of a deal though - I may not have an eye-patch for eye-patch emergencies, but I do have a first aid kit for minor injury emergencies.

 

 

 

 

Or we might all be using Spectrums. Without Microsoft there might have been another company (perhaps one absorbed by Microsoft during its rise to prominence.) That's the big implication of the Butterfly Effect - removing one element from the system (in this case Microsoft) leads to a chain of outcomes that produces a substantially different future. Or not, possibly - there will be a change, but possibly not a substantial one.

 

Where the Butterfly Effect is most pronounced is in systems where small changes to initial conditions lead to markedly different outcomes - that's Chaos Theory.

I mean its about people making a problem out of it more like, but yeah, the point is that the theory itself makes people create problems like that one.

 

I love to see the butterfly effect in action in stories involving time travel, but really that's just my love of fictional worlds and thought-provoking stories. I believe every choice you make changes your future and, depending on the choice, the future of the human race. But there's also no real point thinking about that when deciding what to do. How can you know that by leaving to go somewhere 10 seconds later you might meet your future husband/wife, or that by leaving just 5 seconds after that instead you might be involved in an accident and die. There's infinite possibilities, but dwelling on them doesn't really help make a decision as they're for the most part out of your control.

I would absolutely love to experiment with it aswell. But I'm pretty sure traveling backwards, and manipulating that accurately would be impossible. Still very interesting to think about though.

[Foxy Socks 2,599]

I honestly think that because of this "free will" is an illusion due to this, and there really is no need to worry about the outcomes too much. Due to everything being influenced by something, even your thoughts and decisions, no matter what they will always have the same outcome in this universe. Basically, everything is technically predetermined, but it's nothing much to worry about since it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

It's interesting to think about, even as I type I am being influenced by something, and there would be no way to change it. I also believe true randomness is impossible due to this. It is a really fascinating theory.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Foxy Socks

[MintTiramisu 105]

This also goes for time traveling. It is said that if you go back in time and kill a single human, the entire world could be different now.

I do believe this is true, and mostly this part.

For example if someone were to go back in time and kill Hitler before he could do anything, then there would be so many more people who wouldn't be dead, who would reproduce and share their beliefs. This could mean you or I would not exist at all, or we would be completely different people. Every decision you make has an impact, and if you were to do it differently it would have a different impact. While probably not for the smallest thing (such as sneezing or not sneezing) wouldn't make that big of a difference, it would most likely change the time or way a (possibly) pre-determined action is carried out.

 

Plus, if you really think about it you aren't controlling your own actions, in the way you really are. Oh, and warning this most likely won't make sense cause I haven't really thought about it in depth. xD

Your brain is making decisions and doing things without you as a person with separate thoughts and opinions telling it not to do things everyone else would, such as a nervous impulse of some sort, while your body is carrying out the command as it was made to do. You are mostly a puppet and possibly only have the emotions and desire to do things, because of our brain's inability to focus on it's biggest mission: to stay alive. Honestly I can't remember where this was going, so it probably wasn't important. Ignore this if you wish, I won't fight for it because I can't explain it.  

[Once In A Blue Moon 895]

I also believe true randomness is impossible due to this.

 

So far as we understand, atomic decay is random. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years, so if you have 1 mole* of 14C6  after 5730 years you will have 0.5 moles of 14C6 and 0.5 moles of 14N7  (plus loads of loose electrons and anti-neutrinos) but for an individual atom there is only a 50% chance of decay over that time and it is impossible to predict when it will actually decay.

 

 

*6.022 x 10^23 atoms

Edited March 24, 2017 by Once In A Blue Moon

[Summer Breeze 2,528]

I actually really believe that the butterfly is a legit thing and it effects the world in a great way. not only your own life but also the life of others. I came to realise this when playing dogeball. like, the balls are thrown around, people catch them and throw them back, maybe you have touched the ball, changed it's direction and because you did that, eventually the other team is eliminated and maybe that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't changed the direction of the ball. or maybe even by just standing in a certain spot, because you stood there, your teammate ran the other way to get around you and thus changed the whole course of the game.

 

it's quite scary when you think about it, because who knows, maybe by doing the tinyest thing ever you indirectly saved someones life, or maybe someone got killed because you did something small, no one knows and no one ever will know. all I know is that little actions can have a HUGE effect and it can change literally the whole world...

[Cocoa_Cream25 12]

My sister learned about the butterfly effect a while ago and she started thinking about all the possible outcomes that could happen with each thing she did. It drove her a little crazy. Don't worry, she's fine, but it really got me thinking...

[Yakamaru 3,127]

EVE Online would be somewhat of a proof of this theory.

How players act, react and behave will have an effect on other players in a direct or indirect manner.

[SugarCoatxMarblePie 701]

If the butterfly effect is like dominos being knocked over in mysterious patterns, then its still a pattern we just do not grasp it. Alot of it may be useless information, like how a part of the brain's function is to ignore information that's not important. If no one did that they would have problems, and it is through that that some geniuses may develop some eccentricities along with rare understandings.

[TBD 17,254]

I don't see much of a theory in my opinion since it is a fact that anything you do or say will have a aftereffect. Whether it's noticeable or not,  big or small, and/or good or bad.

[I used to be a stranger 7,993]

In 1914 in the city of Sarajevo was a sad, lonely man, sitting at a cafe, eating a sandwich.

Earlier that day, he was part of a group of Nationalists hoping to stir up pride in the Serbian people. He, like others, had intended to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke and Prince of the Austro-Hungarian empire. One of his nationalist comrades had thrown a grenade which flew over the Archduke's car and exploded, maiming a bunch of bystanders on the opposite side of the parade. The Archduke was sped away to safety, but still in the city at the behest of the Mayor. The mayor convinced the Archduke that his polticial situation, precarious as it was, might be improved if he went to the hospital to visit those who had been injured in the assassination attempt.

Ferdinand's chauffeur was unfamiliar with the streets of Sarajevo, and accidentally took a wrong turn when trying to join the motorcade headed for the hospital. He stopped to back up, but the engine stalled. Right in front of a little cafe. A cafe with a man sitting there, eating a sandwich.

Two bullets and two months later, 1.5 million lay dead throughout Europe in the early pangs of the First World War.

Now call the Butterfly Effect a "theory".