Interesting and not trivial free association about what is going on.
The butterfly effect of the butterfly ballot.
The adversarial two- (or more) party system is meant to be evenly balanced
and meant to give each candidate the opportunity to thwart their opponents.
For a variety of reasons, including in my opinion features of "third way"
politics, this election was particularly close. That is shown in the
results in the Senate, the House of Representatives, and in a large number
of states.
As formally defined in the mathematics of dynamical systems theory,
popularly called chaos theory, the butterfly effect is 'sensitivity to
initial conditions'.
The term 'initial' refers to the conditions at the start of a mathematical
model or an experiment which is closed from outside influences. Real life
of course is ongoing and the relevance of the butterfly effect has to be
adapted to apply not just to "initial" conditions.
We can now say that in certain situations with feedback iterative loops
shaping the nature of the interacting phenomena, at certain times,
apparently chance variations in the conditions may produce a qualitative
effect out of all proportion to the apparent quantitative change in the
variable concerned.
Randomness and probability seem to be part of the fundamental quantum
texture of the universe.
Butterfly effects happen in competitive ball games when balls may just
bounce a quarter of an inch to the left of where expected. And they happen
in elections.
Both these are human systems in which the random nature of chance may have
a disproportionate effect. Hence their exciting nature.
The fact though that the Democratic and Republican parties have subjected
themselves to such a close- fought risk-filled contest, should not be used
as an excuse to glorify the two party system which keeps the overall
dynamics of political life, firmly under the influence of capitalism.
At 17:39 10/11/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Reflection on Peter's comment
>
> > One of my colleagues refers to this as Shrodinger's election...
>
>plus this from a news article on butterfly ballots in MA
>
> > The problem in Massachusetts was the chad -- the piece of paper that
>is
> > supposed to separate completely from a hole-punch ballot. When it
>does not,
> > counting machines may not be able to ''read'' the ballot properly.
>
>suggests we invoke Heisenberg, too. Here's why. A lot of these Palm
>Beach ballots may have partly-punched holes -- these little "chad"
>things just hanging on, flipping back and forth randomly. Are they
>punched or not? Each time you run the ballot through the machine, you
>may get a different answer. Moreover, by physically moving the ballot
>through the machine reader you may detach some partly-punched "chads,"
>thus changing the thing counted every time you count.
>
>Best, Colin
Chris Burford
London
