October 2016
We have all seen I’m sure the slow motion footage of a drop of water hitting the surface and the effect it has. The concentric ripples that occur are beautiful, sensuous and relaxing to watch as they expand across the surface.
It’s something I could watch it over and over again, it’s quite hypnotic in fact, but I enjoy the wonder of that moment. These ripples are beautiful and a wonder of nature and there is a certain symmetry of that event which I relish.
However the Ripple effect as we describe it is the continuing results of an event or action. Depending on how big the event is the ripples generated are relative.
For instance if you scale up that ripple from the drop of water we might get a Tsunami similar to what happened in Japan in 2011 or Thailand in 2004. The earthquakes that triggered these events were huge. The ripples and shock waves that were set in motion on those days had a catastrophic effect.
So let’s look at a couple of weeks ago when China devalued its currency. This began a chain of events around the world. Stock markets had their biggest falls since the GFC. Why ? because rumours rippled around the world that there was a crisis looming. Many people panicked. Many small investors in China have lost a lot of money as well as here. Our dollar is falling more so on rumour and speculation rather than cold hard facts.
What about Ashley Madison, have you heard about that website? You know the one you can join if you fancy a fling with someone. Was your account one of those hacked? I know mine wasn’t.
Hacker’s got into the site and threatened to expose their many clients. Two suicides were linked to the hack. What caused both of these things? Quite simply fear. Fear of the unknown
A ripple of fear grew from what might be. The consequences of these events were in the forefront of the psyche of many people.
In the modern age Social media has become a vehicle that can move rumour and scandal around the world in seconds.
On Facebook the other day a young French girl posted a video saying that she was looking for the wonderful guy that she met on her one night stand and he is now going to be a proud father after their night of passion in Mooloolaba. A short time later it’s reported that it was a hoax. They did this to see how quickly something went Viral as the ripple turned into a tsunami fed by chaos.
So you can see that the power of the ripple effect is not to be under estimated and that it’s everywhere.
So on a different level, how does our journey through life each day affect our own world? What ripples do we initiate? Some we may know about but many will go unnoticed.
It’s what is known as the butterfly effect.
This is the Theory that everything matters.
That even the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can influence the creation of a hurricane on the other side of the world.
If you change even the smallest of life’s details, you completely change its outcome.
This is part of chaos theory, So what is Chaos theory?
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics
It studies the behaviour of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions—more so referred to as the butterfly effect. It’s used in weather modelling systems.
So small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for such dynamical systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general. So in other words instead of being 2.79 it will be `2.8
This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behaviour is still determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.
In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable
But the butterfly effect means that is has sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one condition can result in large differences in a later state.
The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, An American mathematician born in 1917.
He derived it from the metaphorical example of the details of a hurricane (exact time of formation, ( X)+ (Y) exact path taken) being influenced by minor disturbances such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier then chaos ensues.
Lorenz discovered the effect when he observed that runs of his weather model with initial condition data that was rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. An exceedingly small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome.
So in other words the next cyclone that starts to form of the east coast might turn into the perfect storm only because of that butterfly or maybe you or I did something to influence it like swatting a fly.
A simple way of looking at it is like this
The butterfly effect is exhibited by very simple systems. For example, the randomness of the outcomes of throwing dice depends on this characteristic to amplify small differences in initial conditions—the precise direction, thrust, and orientation of the throw—into significantly different dice paths and outcomes, which makes it virtually impossible to throw dice exactly the same way twice.
So what has this all got to do with us. Well can we predict the future? Is the future already written? Some people think so. Time is like a river flowing to the sea and if you want you can go faster or return to a previous point you can……………but can you?, not according to Chaos theory.
Well because of the chaos theory and the butterfly affect nothing is certain. The ripples that we set up on our path through life will collide with others along the way and from those Initial Conditions based on Chaos theory the outcome will be unpredictable but if you have two people, such as a musicians coming together then the sum of result may be more predictable only because the initial conditions are constant
We can predict a possible outcome but the future is not certain. You drop your car keys as your getting into the car tonight, what would have happened if you hadn’t?
As you walk down the street tonight and old man asks for some money, what do you do? Ignore him; give him a couple of dollars. What happens in both scenarios to him, to you?
One event in our lives can not only change your life forever but that of someone else that you don’t even see.
The world is currently in a state of flux.
We have the largest movement of people since the second world was and the ripples set in motion by the wars in the gulf years ago have now created a state of play that brings in all I have mentioned.
The ramifications of one person’s decision years ago could have been the butterfly in this scene and now the tsunami of people moving across the globe will change the world as we know it forever. We can speculate on outcomes but right now there are so many variables in the mix that it will be impossible. Governments around the world know of the moral decisions they need to take but they won’t and if they don’t then to be brutally honest the problem is so great that the perfect storm is brewing.
It ultimately comes down to cause and effect.
Ripples can be very beautiful things but it depends on the medium.
In days gone by when say Julius Caesar was slain it took a many weeks for that news to reach the ends of the empire. Today we watch such events live. When Gaddafi was killed it was streamed live around the world. We saw the immediacy of the reaction to his death but it was only later that the underlying ripples of unrest began to spread
Many Governments have used the ripple of fear to control the masses through propaganda. Including the Australian government. Tony Abbott is a big fear monger. The Lindt cafe siege was a gift to the government to suddenly promote fear in the community. And of course to finally become part of that group of countries that has had to deal with terrorism.
The Lindt cafe incident was not terrorism it was a lone nutter who just happened to be Muslim. He should never have been walking the streets in the first place. The judicial system failed the public and the police on the day were ill equipped to deal with the situation.
A ripple can turn into a tsunami
Consequences, scammers Victims misinformation.
We only have to look at recent history to see how one America Republican government used fear to enter Iraq.
And look at that outcome, the world is in a hell of a state.
With no foresight chaos ensues.
Since I was born the political landscape of the world has changed dramatically. Greed , ignorance and of course fear have fueled so many conflicts in the world. When the iron curtain was in place we used to fear what we could not see. We could only take the word of a few to let us see into that world. Unfortunately America has taken the lead in many of the conflicts around the globe using fear as the motivation for its actions.
My Mum used to always say to me that the Americans shoot first and ask questions later and how right she was. And still today the ripple of fear travels through American society.
If you look around you, the ripples of daily life affect us in many ways.
So be aware of as you walk through life, be aware of the ripples that you might be setting in motion after all, it ultimately comes down to cause and effect.
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