Trans-Atlantic Butterflies

The mere fact that you're creating a timeline or progression of events untied to that of OTL means that random chance will begin acting almost immediately once the POD is set, regardless of physical proximity to the site of the first "difference" in the timeline. If I relived my day (Monday, 2 April 2012) three times starting from the moment I woke up (I would simply be rewinding back to the same starting point and hitting play at that point in time), I would end up with three inevitably differing progression of events, even if there is no noticeably different POD . Human behavior, like many things, is extremely fickle, varying greatly regardless of identical external conditions, and human interaction inherently drives human history.

The problem is that there's no reason why you'd be more or less likely to do any given action than you were TTL. So you might "repeat" your actions in one or even all three of those.

Will you do exactly the same thing in every single one of a hundred timelines? No.

Also, whether you typo Monday or not is unlikely to make a difference.
 
Even if that's the case, there would be sufficient compounded differences (accumulated from individual behavior, natural phenomena, and so forth) to result in a noticeably differentiable set of end conditions from those of OTL within say a year or so of the POD, regardless of how near or far to the geographical center of the POD.
 
Even if that's the case, there would be sufficient compounded differences (accumulated from individual behavior, natural phenomena, and so forth) to result in a noticeably differentiable set of end conditions from those of OTL within say a year or so of the POD, regardless of how near or far to the geographical center of the POD.

How? If all the changes have been on the level of you typoing Monday, how are things out of contact with what's going on (there's no real "other side of the world" with modern technology) going to amount to anything?

I mean, we're talking changes so tiny that even on the immediate level they're practically invisible. How is it going to influence the behavior of Japanese investors?

That's the problem I have with the butterfly effect, the idea that any change is significant, rather than the idea that even small changes in the right places are.
 
Small differences from OTL's string of events can compound to result in a vastly varying outcome than IOTL. What's so unreasonable about that idea of "for want of a nail"?

It's not so much that certain changes are more significant than others. It is that the fact that the instant you create an ATL, separating it from OTL by the POD, differences of varying magnitudes from OTL immediately begin cropping up everywhere at once on account of random chance.

It is, of course, impractical to try to model that vast degree of random chance, which is where suspension of disbelief comes into play. We can assume that certain general trends and progressions will come to fruition, but they just as easily may not.

edit: Have we argued this before in some other thread? This is feeling mighty familiar.
 
Small differences from OTL's string of events can compound to result in a vastly varying outcome than IOTL. What's so unreasonable about that idea of "for want of a nail"?
Let me put it this way.

Sure, the horse has lost a nail. That COULD mean the horse is lost, and the rest of the chain. Or it could just mean that the horseshoe is missing a nail.

It's not so much that certain changes are more significant than others. It is that the fact that the instant you create an ATL, separating it from OTL by the POD, differences of varying magnitudes from OTL immediately begin cropping up everywhere at once on account of random chance.

It is, of course, impractical to try to model that vast degree of random chance, which is where suspension of disbelief comes into play. We can assume that certain general trends and progressions will come to fruition, but they just as easily may not.
How does random chance enter into this? I mean, are you honestly saying that what determines whether or not - for instance - Henry V dying at the age he did is just random chance, without any relationship to circumstances?

Picking an event that would happen differently, by your logic, simply because some event somewhere in let's say southern Africa - a stray cow for instance.

edit: Have we argued this before in some other thread? This is feeling mighty familiar.
I suspect so, I've argued this in several of the Butterfly based threads.
 
I largely mention random chance as it dictates such things as the Brownian motion of particles. Movement of air, in turn, affects such variables as temperature and atmospheric conditions like humidity and that kind of thing, both of which I see as exerting something of an influence on biological processes and behaviors of organisms. Now it's debatable just how much of an influence the external environmental stimuli wields on human actions, but that's a whole different discussion that'll get all mixed up with Skinner's assertions on the nature of free will.
 
I largely mention random chance as it dictates such things as the Brownian motion of particles. Movement of air, in turn, affects such variables as temperature and atmospheric conditions like humidity and that kind of thing, both of which I see as exerting something of an influence on biological processes and behaviors of organisms. Now it's debatable just how much of an influence the external environmental stimuli wields on human actions, but that's a whole different discussion that'll get all mixed up with Skinner's assertions on the nature of free will.

I think for discussion's sake we can settle for saying whether or not those will add up to anything large enough to cause a change at a distance. Humans make decisions in response to stimuli, that's all we need to know here.

But to put it this way, you need a large amount of air moving for a hurricane, will one butterfly cause that to happen, or will it simply start a chain that eventually leads to a hurricane?
 
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