Is the "Butterfly Effect" being studied as a phenomenon?

FreeEmotion November 16, 2017 at 10:25 2800 views 4 comments

Can you obtain a Ph.D. in "Butterfly Effect in Society"?

The thought of how one simple action can have far reaching consequences is a fascinating idea, worthy of study. Does anyone have any information on how this is being studied formally?

I am interested in how the effect works in terms of human interactions rather than in how weather is affected by initial conditions.

For example in one science fiction movie involving time travel, the travelers are careful not to
'talk to anyone'. If talking to a single person could change the course of history, we can reasonably assume that each word we say is changing the course of history or at least has the potential to do so.

This seems to be a good reason to study it. But no one is studying it, it seems.

Comments (4)

FreeEmotion November 16, 2017 at 10:43 #124644 0 likes

I found some related web pages, did not read fully, but interesting:

https://everydaypowerblog.com/2017/05/28/use-butterfly-effect-create-change/

http://www.positivearticles.com/Article/Using-The-Butterfly-Effect-To-Change-Your-Life/29632

http://www.logicalspiritualism.com/Default.aspx?action=news-view&id=37

Streetlight November 16, 2017 at 10:57 #124650 0 likes

It's a whole branch of study:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

FreeEmotion November 16, 2017 at 11:27 #124657 0 likes

That link, though obvious, yielded something more useful than the last time I looked at it. The Butterfly Effect in action?

Right at the bottom of the page, this occurs:

"Chaos theory can be applied in psychology. For example, in modeling group behavior in which heterogeneous members may behave as if sharing to different degrees what in Wilfred Bion's theory is a basic assumption, the group dynamics is the result of the individual dynamics of the members: each individual reproduces the group dynamics in a different scale, and the chaotic behavior of the group is reflected in each member.[99]"

Difficult to understand in English, for me at least.

Then there is this, more along the lines of what I expected:

http://www.societyforchaostheory.org/ndpls/

fdrake November 16, 2017 at 12:03 #124670 0 likes

I have a pet peeve with the term 'butterfly effect', what it's supposed to convey is the idea that small changes in initial conditions in some dynamical systems can lead to large changes in output. But the means by which it does this is by describing an end point and a starting point which is its cause. This misunderstanding is why you can get the occasional person who justifies their actions because of the butterfly effect.

This wrong way of thinking about it also has a habit of permeating ecological debates. The question 'can and should we intervene in this ecosystem for humanistic reasons?' is always answered 'no, because we don't know what will happen (butterfly effect)'. This is wrongheaded.