The quantum theory of the election

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Mon Nov 27 23:10:33 PST 2000


At 12:21 26/11/00 -0800, you wrote:


>In essence, an election begins as a virtual campaign fought over virtual
>votes. Any individual elector (voter) exists in a mindwave of political
>uncertainties and possibilities, often holding multiple contradictory
>positions at the same time due to a never-ending bombardment of political
>ads and campaign literature.
>
>At the point of election, these multiple possible states in an elector
>collapse into a single physical form known as a ballot.

And then the mindwave starts again roaming over the further uncertainties and possibilities.

I responded on PEN-L to another post with the title of the Heisenberg election two weeks ago. I made the following points about the relevance of chaos theory to the the way these sometimes very small quantum differences can have a disproportionately large effect. How humans work to reduce the possible chaotic effects is to anticipate in further mind waves all the possibilities and try to discount them. What does a party have to do to position itself best for the election of 2002? This will probably be the biggest determinant of the final result.

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.

Chris Burford

London



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list