Quote:
Originally Posted by shane.mcneil
I saw the SBS doco on Chaos Theory this week. It is still on their website if you missed it. It was really good. I just wanted to know if I understood what it said.
Does Chaos Theory say that a fully describable system can do unexpected things, and the reason for this is we can not fully know all of the starting conditions of the system. So any slight errors in our estimate of the initial conditions will become magnified over time and thus unexpected things will happen.
Is that correct??? 
Regards,
Shane |
Hi Shane;
Sounds like you've mastered the essence of it already !
Good on you.
I've
raised some examples arising from the Chaos Theory perspective in other IIS forums recently, sometimes with completely 'unpredictable' results !
… The hallmark of a Chaotic system is also self-similarity, so I'm expecting repeats of some of those rather unfortunate encounters, also. Unfortunately, when and where these repeats may occur, is mathematically unpredictable, as I have entirely no knowledge of the initial conditions which give rise to those encounters. All I know is that if the pattern repeats, there is likely a chaotic system lurking around somewhere ... and thus, there are statements which can made, with the benefit of mathematical certainty, supporting them
Classic stuff !
I'm just having some
fun with the Chaos perspectives here, (please don't take offense at my example), however, my words would be entirely consistent within the perspectives which Chaos Theory provides us with.
Cheers