Butterfly effect.

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The theory refers as to the idea that, a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. Of course the butterfly cannot literally cause a tornado.

The term is sometimes used in popular media dealing with the idea of time travel, usually inaccurately. Most time travel depictions simply fail to address butterfly effects. According to the actual theory, if history could be "changed" at all (so that one is not invoking something like the Novikov self-consistency principle which would ensure a fixed self-consistent timeline), the mere presence of the time travelers in the past would be enough to change short-term events (such as the weather) and would also have an unpredictable impact on the distant future. Therefore, no one who travels into the past could ever return to the same version of reality he or she had come from and could have therefore not been able to travel back in time in the first place, which would create a phenomenon known as time paradox.

Such is to say, time travel would be impossible in the near future, because the simple fact that we could travel time, would make it that the future generation would travel BACK in time, and most likely destroy the time machine from ever being created, due to the fact that people might come back to change the outcome, and destroy reality as we know it, and as for the better of mankind, they'd come to destroy the time machine.

With that at state, i put the debating questions at hand.

Upon reading said information, one can ask.

Does this mean that the time machine already had the potential of being created in the past?

Would chaining the butterfly effect to the phenomenon known as "time paradox" affect the outcome of time travel, to the point of making it a reality?

Would to say that Although a butterfly flapping its wings has remained constant in the expression of this concept, the location of the butterfly, the consequences, and the location of the consequences have varied widely, would most likely affect the total outcome of the effect? (so to speak time travel)

(out of subject)

Has kyeruu truly posted an intelligent/interesting thread for the first time in the history of zelaron?


Let the debating BEGIN!

You forgot to post the link of where you copy/pasted it from.

Wikipedia, mostly. You've got to give him the fact that the subject is interesting, even if he didn't type the description himself. Quite frankly, I couldn't care if all of it is copied and pasted, the main thing is the debate, and it's one I'd like to join in on when I've done my own research and have the time.

EDIT: Seeing as we're talking about time, I thought I'd post this description of time by Doctor Who (!K_A!'s post below reminded me of it):

I don't know a ton about the Butterfly Effect, myself, but from what I understand, it assumes that time is a linear thing.

I tend to believe that time is much different than that. I would imagine it as more of a "multiverse" sort of thing, where everything keeps branching off. Every time you make a decision, you choose which path you're going down, but the other path is still there and still happens, you just aren't on it to experience (or at least, the version of you that you currently are.)

I don't claim to know that for sure, of course, but personal experience and time spent thinking about it tells me that that's the most logical explaination I can come up with.

Anyway, what that means is that, in my opinion, the Butterfly Effect is invalid. If time actually is linear, then the Butterfly Effect applies, but otherwise, it doesn't reapply apply to anything.

Then again, I suppose that if time works how I think it does, the Butterfly Effect might make even more sense. My brain isn't in philosophy/theoretical science mode right now, so I'll return to this once I've done some research on the Butterfly Effect and I've gathered my thoughts a bit better.

I agree and disagree, basically speaking i say that yes time is branched off.

Here's an example:

subject A B C are in order, so let's begin.


A chooses B and C goes away.

A and B go >>>>>>>>>>
While C goes <<<<<<<<
although A and B only knew from experience that this happened >>>>>>>>..
the <<<<<< that C took place happened at the same time.

Basically speaking, time DOES branch off since 1 action doesnt' mean others won't take place BUT an action that's related to another may cause it to change, thus the butterfly effect.