English Version | The Butterfly (D)effect

If a butterfly flutters its wings and no one is there to see it, how do we know what happens later is a consequence of this action? How can we strive to understand the laws of the universe, if we can’t even manage to avoid interpretation errors?

Massachusetts, United States, 1961. On a particularly cold winter's day, Edward Lorenz, professor of medical theology at the highly regarded MIT, enters numbers into a computer programmed to stipulate weather patterns. He later replicates the process, but by mere chance rounds up one of the hundreds of variables from 0.506127 to 0.506. This small detail would turn out to be one of the most important mistakes of modern science. After entering, for the second time, what he thought were the same numbers, Lorenz got up to get a cup of coffee - the result was predictable and was only confirming conclusions already made. When he returned, the shock of the calculations achieved by the primitive computer nearly knocked the hot beverage from his hands. As he contemplated the answers to his math he understood: the change of the value 0.000127 drastically changed the weather forecast within two months. After 11 years, on December 28, 1972, Lorenz decided to reveal his findings. At the 139th edition of the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, he made his findings known through a simple question, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"

The American theorist's analogy gave the phenomenon its name: the butterfly effect. The concept, which has entered popular culture with relative ease, presents the notion that even the smallest and most seemingly harmless acts can have gigantic - and serious - consequences. Needless to say, it is not the poor butterfly that is responsible for the natural disaster, but the chain reaction it causes. The idea that something as small as an insect can affect the universe in a significant way was revolutionary. Not only in metaphysical and philosophical terms (lines of thought had already reached this conclusion, albeit in other ways) but also for the world of exact sciences, which for the first time considered this possibility. The notion shook the scientific community and, just as when you shake an orange tree, something fruitful came down. "Chaos Theory" is the name of the field that came up with this notion. An ominous name, it could come from any subtitle of a superhero movie, but it only describes the scope of this thesis: finding patterns in the chaos that is the universe. What the theory explores are systems that are seemingly chaotic, about which predictions were previously considered impossible: according to this thesis, what we thought of as chaos is nothing more than a system whose initial conditions are extremely sensitive, where any derisory variation, like a butterfly, has the potential to generate divergent outcomes. These notions are supported by equations in which letters take the place of expectable numbers. So let's not pretend to understand more of the deep complexity of Chaos Theory - what we can safely report are its applications. Though they are avowedly abstract, the teachings of this principle serve purposes in many diverse areas. Weather pattern recognition, stock market forecasting, and molecular biology are just some of the areas in which the theory helps us understand the universe in which we live.

Of course, its scope is not purely scientific. If that were the case it would not have inspired a countless number of works - in literature, film, and the occasional self-help book. Films such as The Butterfly Effect (2004), Sliding Doors (1998), and Blind Chance (1987) explore, with varying degrees of precision and quality, the concept thought up by Edward Lorenz. But the philosophical and moral considerations about the butterfly effect don’t stop with films. The laws that govern our universe have a peculiar quality, one that is often overlooked: their allegorical property. Like biblical texts, or children's fables, the concepts that govern the universe manifest important lessons for our personal lives. Think of Newton's Third Law which, for those who fell asleep in Physics and Chemistry class, explains that every action always has a reaction of equal intensity and opposite direction. This notion is true in both the physical and emotional world. The way we behave, the words that come out of our mouths, the attitude we have toward others, all of this inevitably generates reactions. This dogmatic relationship is common to several concepts, including the butterfly effect. This principle is easily transposed, requiring very little intellectual gymnastics. Each person, though only a tiny grain of sand in a vast desert, is capable of changing the configuration of the dunes. These analogies allow us to understand the spectrum of this concept, it is not only the butterfly that affects its environment, it is its wing flapping. In the same way, small actions can have a giant impact on the lives of others. No moralizing speeches are intended, the typical "you never know what someone else is going through" clichés that just make you roll your eyes. But as nauseating as it is, this notion is not without reality. Small acts of kindness, as well as malice, mean more than we can understand. The choices we make every day, every hour, minute, and second, have the potential to drastically impact not only the course of our lives but of the entire humanity. What this notion gives us is the awareness that it is through our actions that the future materializes, and if we make the right decisions consecutively, even our most remote dreams can come true. The pressure each breath carries with it is more than considerable, it is overwhelming. The butterfly effect informs us not only of a chaotic system, but of the enormous influence we have on it, a weight that is unsustainable, both for the fragile wings of a butterfly and for our limited understanding of the universe.

In an almost cruel way, the films, scientific theories, and philosophical ponderings that were born from the concept introduced by Edward Lorenz are nothing more than the butterfly effect of a misinterpretation by those present in that hushed conference room. In his gentle voice, the American meteorologist was not trying to create a way for us to understand chaos, but rather to surrender to it. What Lorenz was trying to communicate was something deeper, something harder to accept. By describing the impact of a simple butterfly, the scientist was expressing the frivolity of the pretensions of superiority on the part of a species that often masquerades as God. The purpose of his provocative question was the opposite of the considerations derived from it: we cannot guess the future. The predictions we make will never be accurate if even a flutter of wings on the other side of the world can condition the world in substantial ways. According to Edward Lorenz, the universe is governed by logical laws, but the human species, by its limitations of reasoning, will never understand them. Chaos is the inevitable condition of the world around us, and as long as we are part of it, we can never perceive it objectively. As the progress of science substantiates itself, this notion crystallizes. Consider the many-worlds interpretation, a theory of quantum physics that, through mathematical calculations that we do not aspire to understand, communicates to us the plausibility of the possibility of parallel universes. Again, no, we are not dealing with comic book themes, this is reality as described by the scientific community. According to the theory, whenever two quantum particles interact with each other, the world splits in two, in a measure of time so minute that there are no expressions to describe it. What this interpretation suggests is the "existence" of an infinite number of parallel universes, where all possibilities become true, and between which communication is impossible. This idea is completely intangible in our minds, and yet it makes sense in mathematical terms.

The notion of powerlessness may be hopeless to some, but among its implications, we find an immense sense of freedom. The pressure we feel with every action, with every breath, is more than illusory, it is futile. It is frightening to absorb the notion that, in a fundamental way, we cannot predict the impact our actions have - that bittersweet feeling that if we had acted differently, and taken a different path, we could have avoided mistakes being made. Fortunately, there is a theory for everything, and after 200 millennia of existence, the human species has thought of (almost) everything, including a solution to this dilemma. In 1843, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard announced to the world something relevant: Regret is more than inevitable, it is a natural part of the human condition. When faced with a choice - between two paths, two options - the fear of regret should not be a variable to be taken into account. Our limited abilities to understand the world make it impossible to understand the consequences that each choice entails. Even if the choice not taken benefits us the least, we can never achieve that awareness. In that sense, regret is just another constant we have to learn to live with. Even if some interpret Kierkegaard's considerations as nihilistic, pessimistic, and even depressing, the truth is quite different - in powerlessness there is freedom. The philosopher's message was not apocalyptic, on the contrary, it was a declaration of hope. By giving up impossible claims, such as the idea that we can understand the universe, we also relieve ourselves of the claim to control the uncontrollable chaos. Edward Lorenz's words resound in our ears again, but this time more clearly. We are free. We are butterflies.  

Translated from the original on The Butterfly Effect issue from Vogue Portugal, published October 2022.Full story and credits on the print issue.