Ever heard that phrase: the butterfly flapping its wings in (some country) caused a hurricane in (some other country). Highly ridiculed of course.. but still..

When I throw a rock in the water it will ripple out, till in the end the ripples cannot be seen anymore. But it is still rippling in some way or form, just the bare eye cannot see it.

When I say something people will hear it, it will have an effect in one way or the other, it will ripple on (unless I speak nonsense, but let's assume for a second that I didn't )

Something that happens is because of a sequence of events, one causing the next, causing the next and so on. Cause and effect once again.

Cause and effect is one of the reasons I am always trying to be nice to my clients. A smile gets you everywhere, so I've learned. Some people are blind to that though, ah well, I then think, and I am not going to do an effort then either because it's no use to.


Where am I going with this? I have no idea anymore.. I spent too much time thinking on it


Anyway.. grab this info and take this thought train somewhere interesting

One of my professors mentioned something interesting. There's this effect... I don't remember what it's called, because it's named after this German scientist who described it, and names like that don't stick in my head... anyway, he said that anytime you observe something (say, electrons under a microscope), the act of observation changes the nature of what's being observed.
My prof then went on to say that this happens in real life, too. Look what happens when you put a kid in front of a camcorder for home movies. (Or, as was the point of this in his lecture, when you put people in front of a camera for a documentary or film ethnography; they act differently, which is why you should never take for granted that something you're seeing in a documentary about people is 100% true... among other reasons, like clever editing or flat out fabrication.)
Anyways, I know this isn't along the same train of thought you had, but it's an interesting thought that had never occurred to me before and which I hope I don't forget.

Search for "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" or for "Schrödinger's cat" However that's what happens at quantum level, I'm not sure how that translates at macro level of the world (see the "Schrödinger's cat" example)

Now, I think that Eadwine was talking about something that's related to predestination: you think what you think now only because you read what I wrote, therefore I, in some why control what you think (not totally, that's determined by your brain structure and the ideas that were put there by your education and in general your history). There's also the concept of memes (like viruses in the word of ideas) and their competition for survival... there are many angles to all this.... I'm not sure where I'm going with it though.

I had to look up what "meme" actually meant, as I knew it was something other than what I see in journals

Now your post makes much more sense to me


Though it isn't exactly where I was intending to go with the topic. It was more a simple version of: butterfly flaps wings, hurricane elsewhere, true cause and effect or nonsense and to what degree DOES it make sense?


But I like the way this thread has gone much more so forget my original intent! I looked up the uncertainty principle and read a wee on it. Thanks for sharing!

The cat went a little over my head though.. am I boiling it down right when I say: "the mere fact of observing something changes its state"? Meaning that when I look at something it already is something else and not what I was supposed to be looking at. Just correct me when I am wrong, I guess my brain needs the simple explanation this early morning

When I was a kid, at some point, I developed this sense that everything I did had some effect on the world. For instance, everybody I encounter today will have a different day because they encountered me, if I stay home--who knows how many number of ways it might change their day and how far reaching or what scale the difference?

But then there are hundreds, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of things that happen--or don't happen that are having that same impact on us at all times. The possibilties are endless.

Or something like that, I think, the longer I think of it, the more complicated it becomes.

I'm well aware that's not actually what she meant; it just came into my head. Heisenberg was his name. I don't know too much about Schrödinger's cat, really, just the basics of the idea. I have to say, I don't really find the two concepts related, and I do think the former can be applied to a level higher than the atomic, though in a metaphorical sense, really. People always behave differently when they know they're being watched, whether they ham it up or clam up.
As for the whole butterfly effect... I don't know. It doesn't seem entirely probable to me in a true physical sense. Energy doesn't go on at the same type and strength indefinitely; of course it can never be destroyed, but that doesn't mean it will always be useful. When a butterfly flaps its wings, it isn't just using that energy to move air around, but also to create heat. And the air it does move around will hit solid objects and lose some of its force. However, I do think it's an apt metaphor, best applied to the actions humans take and how far-reaching their consequences can be.

Well.. I do know one thing for fact.. a simple smile from you to a stranger can cause that person's day to change to the better