Theos-World Causes & Effects
Mar 18, 1999 11:03 AM
by Gerald Schueler
>>Could you give us some examples of these "effects without causes?" I
find that a fascinating idea.
Louis>>
In modern chaos theory, there are some systems
that can go from order into chaos, or rather into
a chaotic basin where it develops new behaviors.
It turns out that there is no cause-effect relationship
between such a system's behavior before it enters a
basin and after.
On the other hand, the now-famous butterfly
effect shows that most complex systems deal
with too many causes rendering them entirely
unpredictable.
And of course the famous Bell theorem which
shows how some local effects can be produced
from non-local causes, although how this is done
is still a mystery.
Chaotic systems are sensitive to initial conditions
and sometimes these initial conditions can be so
tiny as to be unmeasurable, thus effects are
unpredictable and causes are insignificant.
Jerry S.
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