The butterfly effect

A conversation with Vidi today made me think quite deeply about how significant the effect of seemingly mundane choices, decisions and events are on one's life. For example, the apparently innocuous choice Vidi made that day, seven and a half years ago, when she chose to call me to ask me about the file reversal program for the computer science homework, set off a chain of events that led her to be one of the most important people in my life - and me in hers. It is not often that one can so clearly trace back the beginnings of something to its roots - if one could, I believe one would similarly find most of what is important in one's life having its genesis in some very harmless event. Similarly, there is me deciding to listen to my cousin Siddharth one day and just go see what this whole Artistes Unlimited thing was all about. And that single decision led me through some of the most life-changing experiences - both positive and negative - and in many ways brought me to where I am today. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that a lot of what I think and believe in today would not have existed had I not gone to that practice session. And it was a rainy day. I could just as well have not gone - I almost didn't, in fact.

It reminds me of one of the theories of the universe, that postulates a multiverse - a multitude of universes, where at every instant of time, the universe splits into many more universes, each determining a unique sequence of events. How many universes would exist now, if we started with one at the dawn of time?

This spiraling phenomenon is commonly referred to as the butterfly effect in chaos theory - where, as Lorentz pointed out many years ago, a flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil, could eventually set off a tornado in Texas - that would not have occurred had the butterfly not flapped its wings. The mind boggles at the thought of such complex interactions amongst the myriad particles in the atmosphere that could cause such an insignificant action to spiral into a very noticeable phenomenon.

But apply the same principle to human lives, and the level of complexity is multiplied several fold. It is these experiences, these choices, that determine who we are, our character, our beliefs, are thoughts - and our future actions. Of course, there is no way of determining whether we made the better choice - life would have been equally good, had one chosen the other path at any decision node. But who knows what the outcome might have been! For example, if Vidi had not called me that day - who knows where I would be right now, what kind of life I'd be leading, what I would believe in... And this is still just between me and her. Imagine the effect of every single interaction of ours with our fellow human beings, with our environment that we have from day to day. And all the lives we directly or indirectly touch in some irreversible way. And multiply this by 6 billion - because every person in the world is affecting every other in some inconspicuous way. And then multiply by some huge number to get the interactions we've had with the world through all of mankind's history. Staggering, isn't it? The amount of interconnectedness that exists. When one thinks of it in this way, its impossible not to believe there is a greater underlying spirit to all of reality, that holds us together. And it also points out the responsibility we have towards everyone and everything around us. How sacred our interactions with the tiniest atom are! For every little action, every little choice - changes the world irreversibly just that one little bit. And in doing so, affects the balance of the world just that tiny bit. And affects every single soul just that tiny bit. And over time, that tiny action has produced everlasting, observable change in the order of things.

It is of course impossible to map out entirely the consequences of an action - but maybe this will make us all think just that little bit more before doing anything. Will make us careful, and just a little more considerate of how our actions can affect the harmonious balance that God so carefully maintains our world in.