On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 15:17:04 +0000, Ken Smith wrote:

In article ,
John Larkin wrote:
[....]
Of course you can't determine what a small change does to a real-life
chaotic system, because there's nothing to use as a no-stimulus
reference. But you can simulate a chaotic system, with and again
without some stimulus, and compare the results. In a healthy chaotic
system, any, even the tiniest, change results in increasing effects;
if you wait long enough, any small disturbance grows to total,
grand-scale differences in system state. The longterm differences
between a small pertubation and a large one are indistinguishable;
*everything* looks different.

When I lift my arm it appears to move smoothly upwards. The nerves and
muscles are in fact a chaotic system. If you look at one cell, for lift
to lift, the action of that cell can't be predicted. My arm, however,
still rises smoothly.

The "hit and miss" regulator's pattern of on and off is hugely different
when you make a small change in the load but the output voltage remains
near constant.

Both these are examples of systems that robustly chaotic and yet the
average results are easy to predict.

I read a very interesting item about the US economy. It seems companies
are going belly-up like flies, and people are getting thrown out of work
by the thousands, but the economy as a whole is more stable and robust
than it's ever been. I think that one thing is that with the instant
world-wide communication and EFTs and stuff, that the response loop
has been shortened, maybe intensified, at the one-company level - but
because it is so chaotic, and so big, some other entity will very quickly
fill the "void" - actually, this is another reason why Freedom is always
better than control. :-)

Cheers!
Rich
--
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo Possum