Chaos theory

[bennyboy]

When you drop a pebble, your precision is not such that you can predict which one, if any, it will land on. Your knowledge of the traps is not such that you call say ahead of time whether each of trap will shut if the pebble lands on it, and whether the trap, if closing, will trigger any bombs that might be rigged to the cheese plate. This is a better approximation of the idea of chaos.

Yes, chaos theory definitely, but not germane to a discussion about the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect isn't about a butterfly flying past a sensor that triggers a weather machine.

I don't believe in chaos. Given enough data and enough compute power we could probably calculate the results. Oh, or even better, they all happen in parallel universes. No, I'm not just trying to be a wanker. If m-theory is correct, then all possibilities occur and I don't know how to explain why we only perceive the one we actually perceive.

Ignoring trigger events is wrong, IMO. Even an eddy of wind can be a trigger event if it is the straw that broke the back of a slightly larger eddy on the verge of changing direction or whatever.