Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?
This was the question posed by meteorologist, Edward Lorenz, in a 1972 talk he gave to the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Lorenz began his research into weather patterns in the early 1960s and was one of the ‘inventors’ of Chaos Theory and is sometimes referred to as the ‘father’ of Chaos Theory. Lorenz’s talk is in his book, The Essence of Chaos. Lorenz’s ‘Butterfly Effect’ and the term ‘Butterfly Effect’ was later mentioned and popularized in Gleick’s book, Chaos: Making of a New Science where he depicts graphs identifying Lorenz’s ‘Strange Attractor’, a collection of states, which resembled a butterfly’s wing, as well as a describing Lorenz’s findings in his book.
Climate change cultists beware, Lorenz’s research led him to the conclusion that long term weather patterns can’t be predicted, and that the periodic ice ages (climate change) the earth goes through may simply be a product of Chaos rather than controlled by external factors.
Chaos theory:
Don’t worry my head hurts too…Finding patterns and predictability in the unpredictable. Seems like a fun job…
I should state here that I am not a mathematician or a Chaos theorist. This is a practical layman’s interpretation of applying the ‘Butterfly Effect’ toward political action. Terminology and definitions will be a bit loose.
There is a hidden coherence in what appears incoherent. Chaos theory purports that cause and effect are not proportional. When the ‘strange attractor’ is present, there is an extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, and nonlinear qualities. The ‘Butterfly Effect’ is also known as ‘sensitive dependence on initial conditions’. This is a state that is vulnerable to multiple influences.
“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” – Henry Adams
In his first book A New Science of Life, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, introduced his revolutionary and controversial ideas. It prompted the journal Nature to state that the book was the best candidate for burning in 400 years. In his follow up book, The Presence of the Past, Sheldrake’s concept of Morphic fields is described in broader detail to include societal movements. He postulates that these Morphic fields guide biological processes into form and maintains that form through a field based memory and communication. The hypothesis of formative causation also states that there is an inherent memory in nature transmitted via these Morphic fields. Morphic fields are probabilistic in nature and recreate via a process called Morphic resonance with prior fields of probability, hence the inherent memory. The concept is also applied toward behavioral systems, such as how flocks of birds coordinate, and human society as well.
In biology totally closed or totally open systems die. A cell is semi permeable, not totally open, or totally closed. When applying the concept of Morphic fields to society, my interpretation is that when these Morphic fields become too structurally sound we deal with extreme habitual activity and limited creativity, and in extreme instances, authoritarianism systems. There is a reason why it is often said that the intellectual innovations of one generation are the ideological chains of another.
Creativity brings about new Morphic fields and freedom is required to birth new ideas. Free enterprise and authoritarianism are incompatible. Authoritarian systems seek to tamp down free enterprise and freedom in general, because the new fields of reality that will guide human behavior are an existential threat toward authoritarian systems. These new fields breed change, a restructuring and reordering of society.
Relax, I’m getting there…back to chaos.
This process called Chaos is a disorganization process moving toward order or randomness. This disorder provides for greater influences. The strange attractor or chaotic attractor leads toward greater outside influences. This is a critical point to maximize influences. Opportunity often arises during a crisis if we are open to it.
The implication of nonlinear dynamics is that the logical sequence or progression of events is arising out of an overall context. In other words, ‘A’ may not cause ‘B’, which may not cause ‘C’. They arise spontaneously from an underlying context that appears random. When the ‘strange attractor’ is present the system is more vulnerable to changing that underlying context out of which the content of events arise. Hence, small things may have non-linear influences impacts on a complex systems.
The answer is always contained the question. The presupposition or assumptions in the question set up a field of probability out of which the potential answers exist. Or consider the possibility that the question is created by the answer. An even more difficult proposition to consider. Benjamin Blood, in The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy, a rather abstract pamphlet, he published in the 1800s on his experiences experimenting with nitrous oxide, makes this very assertion. He describes it as digging a hole and filling it back up again. Ironically, it seems deterministic, while we are speaking of the indeterminate. In the mathematics and physics world it is called an attractor. In biology, Sheldrake calls this a creode. These are end points that the processes move toward.
New fields of probability start with an idea followed by action. An unstructured environment is the context necessary for new fields of probability to come into existence. In the political world, and elsewhere, this requires decentralization. There are always top down and bottom up processes, but the less structured and more decentralized, the greater the creativity and innovation needed to prompt a new field’s emergence. Once in existence the process of increasing the structural integrity will continue on its own. Attempts to create unnecessary structure may hamper growth and innovation.
