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Chaos Theory and Entropy

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 06:41:48 2020 No.12079756 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>12079786 >>12080904 >>12080963 >>12081386 >>12081471 >>12081712 >>12081733 >>12082094

Hey /sci.
My friend stomped on a bug and it sparked a conversation about the butterfly effect and chaos theory. I started thinking about thermodynamics and entropy. It seemed like entropy and chaos theory contradicted each other. How can you have different timelines if they all lead to the same conclusion? I'd appreciate some thoughts on these correlations and contradictions.
Thanks!

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 07:03:16 No.12079786 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
There are an infinite number of versions of a dead universe.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 16:23:40 No.12080904 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
What does entropy have to do with different timelines?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 16:39:33 No.12080963 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
By timelines are you talking about different solutions to a differential equation? A system can be considered chaotic if slightly different initial conditions lead to very different solutions, which you can visualize with a bifurcation diagram. This doesn’t really have anything to do with entropy, which describes the number of microstates of a system. Entropy can also describe the lack of information about a system.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 18:07:34 No.12081386 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
No entropy is inherently "linked" to chaos theory. Statistical mechanics represents the state of the system in a high dimensional phase space where small nudges of the initial conditions drastically changes how a point in that phase space evolves over time. Entropy is just a measure on which states in that phase space are accessible given some outer parameters (energy/volume/number of particles). Even though a system might be chaotic, some states are much more likely than others (in the sense that some states are indistinguishable from one another on a macroscopic scale, even though each individual possible state of the system is assumed to be equally likely), which by the principle of maximum entropy implies that generally speaking, on a macroscopic scale these nudges to the initial conditions don't actually matter that much.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 18:19:42 No.12081471 Report

Quoted By: >>12081691

>>12079756

'Chaos' is just when the observer lacks sufficient information of a system in order to control it or make accurate predictions.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 19:12:30 No.12081691 Report

Quoted By:

>>12081471
Except in the universe where it isn't.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 19:16:11 No.12081712 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
Not sure what timelines has anything to do with it, but I think you're more getting at sensitivity to initial conditions (the butterfly effect), which is a necessary but not sufficient property of chaos. I read once that chaos could be described as orderly disorder - not completely disorderly, but still beyond anything that can be described linearly. Entropy is a different matter and I've only heard it discussed in the context of chaos theory a handful of times, something about information and yadda yadda

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 19:20:54 No.12081733 Report

Quoted By: >>12083736 >>12083745

>>12079756
Butterfly effect is a virgin pop-sci story for virgin pop-sci acolytes. You stomp on a poor bug and the bug is fucking dead. That's it. There is no earthquake in China due to what you did. Energy is dissipated as heat or converted to other form BUT NOT amplified. So flapping wings do not cause tornados in Brazil, and stomping on a bug doesn't make earth shaking in Hong Kong. It is stupid. Stupid virgin pop-sci faggotry.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 03 Sep 2020 21:31:38 No.12082094 Report

Quoted By:

>>12079756
you're right, OP. there's not just a butterfly effect, there's a hurricane effect as well.
just like how a butterfly could trigger a hurricane 100 miles away, a hurricane could fail to even move a butterfly that's 100miles away.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 04 Sep 2020 09:04:41 No.12083736 Report

Quoted By:

>>12081733
This. The effects of a butterfly flapping its wings dissipates so quickly into the noise of EVERYTHING that's going on. The only thing it changes is the microscopic configuration of an otherwise indistinguishable macroscopic event.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 04 Sep 2020 09:11:57 No.12083745 Report

Quoted By:

>>12081733
The butterfly effect seems ridiculous because the given example is highly improbable, but this doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
When we observe atoms with a microscope, this can affect our behavior onward, so simple atoms can have an effect on a macroscopic scale.

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