[MD] Chaos

[PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com]

Chaos just simply states that no matter how much data you collect, 
there is not reason to believe the next set of data will look anything 
like the last. In predicting the weather, a butterfly flapping its 
wings on the other side of the world could cause a tornado that was 
going to happen here not, or one that was not going to happen, happen. 

In mathematics, if you start with the number 5 at the beginning of an 
extended equation, the end result would be totally different if you 
used the number 5.00001 at the beginning. 

In finance, it lead to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, or the Random 
Walk Hypothesis that states it is unlikely to be able to predict the 
future returns of any grouping of stocks to the point you could beat 
the collective efforts of all participants by simply holding a proxy 
of the market such as an index fund at a lower cost. 

In cosmology, we might build instruments that will reach to the ends 
of the universe as we know it that may confirm the Big Bang Theory 
from billions of light years worth of data, but then if we were able 
to build instruments that could observe trillions of light years away, 
we might find another universe that is also expanding, or in the act 
of contracting, which might bring us to a theory that our universe is 
no more than something like the electron of our observed universe in 
an even grander universe. On the other side of infinity, we might find 
that our electron in our observed universe is another universe inside 
this observed universe. 

All our knowledge is based on what we know. We can control chaos to 
the point we can claim it is not chaos by finding patterns that 
repeat, even if these patterns are unpredictable, but we can’t know 
these patterns will not change from something like the act of a 
butterfly flapping its wings. 

Or, at least that is my theory. I’m sure it doesn’t fit in with the 
theory of others, but then again that’s their theories. ;o) 

Chin

----- Original Message -----
From: MarshaV <marshalz at charter.net>
Date: Friday, December 8, 2006 5:10 am
Subject: [MD] Chaos
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org

> 
> 
> Chaos is relative.  Isn't it?   
> 
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