How Many Butterflies Will It Take?

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus)

Have you noticed the lack of butterflies these days?

When I was younger (40 or 50 years ago) there seemed to be butterflies everywhere. The cabbage white, cabbage butterfly, or simply white butterfly (Pieris rapae) is (or at least, was) common throughout Europe, North America, eastern Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

The other (then) common butterfly – the Monarch (Danaus plexippus) has a similar global distribution.

Both are in decline. We see far fewer of them today than we did 40 or 50 years ago. I was recently talking with a friend who is twenty years younger than me, and he could not identify the butterfly (Monarch) I was telling him about – he could not recall having ever seen one!

These butterflies are in decline because of (unnatural) human intervention into natural systems. Pesticides, insecticides, habitat loss, food source depletion, and climate change are all causes for the decline.

Butterfly decline may be one of the “canaries in the mine.” The loss of butterflies signals to us that it is time we did something – and did it fast!

What? What can we do? What does any individual do? How can I bring about change?

An allegorical butterfly may be a way to think about this.

Allegorical Butterflies

We might be able to do something if we understood the Butterfly Effect. This effect, an aspect of Chaos Theory, allegorically suggests that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can trigger a thunderstorm in Japan. That may sound far-fetched. However, there is scientific and mathematical support for this.

Put another way (more technically) the hypothesis can be stated as: sensitive dependence upon initial conditions in which a small change in one state can result in significant change in another state.

The idea was initially proposed (discovered may be more accurate) by Edward Lorenz (a meteorologist) working in the 1960s. He stumbled upon the effect when he wanted to re-run a computer simulation of a weather model he was working on. However, to save time, he inputted data that was correct to three decimal places (rather than the six places in the original simulation.) He assumed that the resulting outcome would not differ significantly from that of his original run.

He was wrong! The outcome was significantly different. So much so that the two resulting scenarios looked nothing like each other. He was also surprised.

Lorenz’s discovery led (along with some work by other theorists) to the idea of Chaos Theory. This theory upended our historical mindset that says we live in a linear and predictable world.

We don’t. Our world is non-linear, it is inherently unpredictable, self-organising, and fractally based. To our minds it looks – chaotic.

What can we do with this?

If small changes in initial conditions are able to produce large changes in a subsequent state, then that suggests we have agency, even if small. We can effect change. We can make a difference.

However; a caveat. Just because we can influence the initial conditions, this does not guarantee that the outcomes will be what we want. Chaotic systems have inputs and feedback loops that can be positive and/or negative. Once a system receives an input there is little controlling what happens because of that input. Hence, although the input we make can be made with the best of intentions, we would be foolish to think that the outcome will be as we wish it or envision it.

Vaclav Havel (the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic) understood this well. Even though he worked to bring about change in his country he fully understood the difference between what we may hope for and what we get.

“Hope, in the deep and meaningful sense … is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”¹

Although we are unable to predict the outcome, we can help to tip the probabilities in our favour. We can, as Havel says, “…work for something because it is good.”

The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, advised similarly. Merton was opposed to the Vietnam war, and worked non-violently towards bringing about an end to that war. In a reply to a young correspondent who wrote to Merton of his despair, Merton had these words of advice:

“(Do not) depend on the hope of results… You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.  As you get used to this idea you start to concentrate more and more not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.  And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people…  In the end… it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.”²

Our small, individual, and collective, actions may bring about the significant change we wish. They may not. As Havel and Merton attest, however, the value and rightness of what we do in our relationships should be what we value and work with.

And in that work, the Butterfly Effect may just result in significant change.

This brings us back to the question that is the title of this blog.

How many butterflies will it take?

How many butterflies need to disappear or go extinct before we wake up to the fact that we must do something?

How many of us need to begin flapping our “butterfly” wings in order to do what is right and of value?

Notes:

1. Václav Havel, Disturbing The Peace, Vintage Books, New York, first English edition 1990.

2. My apologies for those looking for a reference to this quotation. I have it written down, but neglected (at the time) to note the source. I’m sure that some judicious seeking may turn it up.

Consciousness Emerging?

Readers of this blog and of my book (Opportunities Emerging: Social Change in a Complex World¹)  will know that I am interested in the phenomenon of emergence.  Emergence says that when the component parts of something are combined, then the resultant properties cannot be predicted by an understanding of the individual elements that make it up. 

For example, take the very simple molecule of water (H₂O): can the physical aspects of water be predicted from an understanding of hydrogen and oxygen alone?  What do we know of each element on its own?  Hydrogen is bitter, sour smelling, and explosive.  Oxygen is tasteless and odourless.  At normal temperatures, hydrogen is a gas.  So, too, is oxygen.  Yet, when combined as the molecule H₂O at normal temperature we get the liquid substance we know as water – the life giver.   Yet, both oxygen and hydrogen on their own only become liquid at extremely low temperatures.  How is that possible?  Scientists call it emergence.

As yet (as far as I am aware) no-one has come up with a scientific theory to explain the process of emergence.²

What About Consciousness

In the past few decades neuroscientists and others have been pondering the question of consciousness.  There is general agreement that consciousness is not synonymous with the brain.  But there does seem to be the assumption that consciousness and the brain are connected.  Furthermore, many assume that consciousness arises from the brain.  This assumption suggests that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

But is it?

How about this as a conjecture?  Consciousness is the power/energy/process/vibration which informs the process of emergence.  Western science has been catching up on eastern thought since the 18th century, when the French mathematician, Jean Fourier, recognised the importance of information in how our world is made manifest.  Fourier’s insights have been expanded on massively since then and now information is understood as more critical than space, time, matter, or even energy.  But, “information” in the scientific world is not the assemblage of crude data devoid of meaning or context that we usually associate with the word information.  When the inter-relatedness and inter-connections between data is understood, then we have information – literally in-formation.  That is, when there is form to the data then we can start to see and understand patterns, and with that, we gain knowledge.

Is this in-formation what we also understand as consciousness?  This idea is not as far-fetched or outlandish as it may sound.  Many scientists and institutions around the world are delving into this area of knowledge and discovering some amazing insights.  These insights turn our accepted view of the world on its head.

Foremost amongst these insights is that consciousness does not emerge or arise from our brain.  Our brain, just as our body, is immersed in a vast sea of consciousness, or information if you prefer.  The second major insight from this research is that we can, and do, tap into this consciousness and create and co-create the world.  We become both the creator and the creation.

And, those insights change everything.  It may be that we need to shift our idea that “seeing is believing” to one of “believing is seeing.”  Or, as Dr Wayne Dyer stated, “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Just think.  What if we fully accepted this way of looking at things?  What if we discovered how this works and worked with it, instead of against it?  What could we achieve?  Could we really move from a focus on emergency to working with consciousness and being open to what emerges.

Notes:
1. meder, bruce, Opportunities Emerging: Social Change in a Complex World, Rainbow Juice Publishing, Coffs Harbour, NSW, 2017.  This is available in paperback or eBook form from www.lulu.com

2. If I am wrong, then I would appreciate readers alerting me.