There are 3 choices, 4 votes for petethemeat's debate

Chaotic moments

Chaos theory states that bifurcations are moments when the systems long-term future depends on tiny fluctuations in the systems environment.

To bring in my long obsession with politics, a bifurcation occured during a vote of no-confidence in which the ruling labour government were beaten 311 votes to 310 (with one labour Mp being seriously ill that day and unable to vote) prior to Margaret Thatchers election as Prime-minister of the UK.

Now I do not know the exact illness but if the illness was say caused by food poisoning, it is not unreasonable to say that 10 minutes more cooking may have had a 'butterfly' effect on the UK policy 'Hurricane'.

Can you think of any obvious bifurcations throughout our human system, and care to speculate on the hypothetical scenarios that would have emerged should these tiny changes not have occured or were altered somehow?

I am aware that a chaos theorist may answer that we are all part of a chaotic system, and that every moment of the system is a bifurcation, this may be true but I would rather deal with obvious moments such as the one mentioned or the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand for example.
  • Dr Frasier Crane
    There was an episode of Frasier that sort of dealt with this. He was deciding what shirt to wear to a blind date or something, and mentioned that the tiniest choice could change our lives forever. The episode then goes off into 2 different directions, one where he wears one shirt and one where he wears the other. Different things do happen, but the two paths eventually meet and Frasier ends up in the same place making the same choice.

    lol I know that's not what you were looking for, but I thought it was interesting.

    I try not think about chaos theory in general, as it is a major headache how impossible all the outcomes are. Helen of Troy, assuming there is any fact to the myth, would be one of the more obvious examples.
    50%  Voted for by Weydon, TeChNoWC.
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  • one chad, two chad, three chad, four
    the 2000 election al gore could still be waiting for one more recount
    Voted for by bob2314.
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  • Scrubs
    Watch the Scrubs episode where there are two version of events. One after a Butterfly lands on an attractive womans chest, and the other on a fat and hairy man's bresticles
    Voted for by tomwc.
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