The butterfly effect and impact of deterministic chaos on our lives
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The things that change the world, according to chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe
Why?The rounded decimal number
Why?
The rounded decimal number was printed out. The computer model worked with 6-digit precision, but the number on the printout was rounded off to a 3-digit number.
The difference was very, very small.
This is when Lorenz discovered that a very small change in starting conditions can lead to vastly different outcomes.
The butterfly effect as we know it was born.
The butterfly effect in
The butterfly effect in action
Here are three examples of the butterfly effect in psychology, history, and business.
- Dynamic systems in cognitive science. Tiny changes in neurotransmitters can have a massive impact on cognition. It’s often impossible to know what exactly tipped a cognitive system.
- The catalyst for World War II. Adolf Hitler was not accepted into art school, a seemingly small decision resulted in events that shaped the world.
- Chaos in business. Consumer decisions are chaotic and complex: consumers don’t actually behave like rational agents.
The butterfly effect teaches
The butterfly effect teaches us to acknowledge the chaotic nature of life, to be mindful of our starting conditions, to generate the best catalysts to achieve our goals, and to constantly adjust our forecast.
The butterfly effect started in meteorology, but you can see it at play in many areas of life and work, such as psychology, economics, politics, and more.
While we can be
While we can be mindful of our starting conditions and try to generate the best catalysts to achieve our goals, understanding the butterfly effect is about embracing the chaotic nature of life.
Our current data can only bring us so far in predicting the future; small changes can have a massive impact on the outcome.
In order to succeed, we need to constantly adjust our forecast. Only then we can thrive in the midst of complexity.
The discovery of deterministic
The discovery of deterministic chaos
Edward Lorenz (1917–2008) was a meteorologist and mathematician who is best known as the founder of chaos theory.
In 1961, Lorenz was using a simple computer to simulate weather patterns by modeling 12 variables.
He wanted to review a sequence again and to save time he started the simulation from the middle. He entered data from a printout to conditions at that specific point in the original computer simulation.
To his surprise, the weather forecast calculated by the computer was completely different from the previous results.