MDMD(4) p.123 small re-write

[Ted Samsel]

Jeremy sez:
 
> Brian D. McCary wrote:
> > 
> > This doesn't so much mean that the butterfly changes or causes the weather.
> > Rather, it means that if you run one model, starting in July, with no butterfly
> > wings in Siberia, and a second one, including a local increase there the
> > butterfly is flapping, one model may predict a blizzard in Akron in six months,
> > and the other one might not.  It is a limitation on the usefulness of the model.
> > This same effect (which limits model efectiveness) shows up in most long term
> > modeling of any complex system, including most economic or political ones.
> > 
> 
> Venturing furthur off topic, I note:
> 
> Also cartographic ones. This note on the inadequacy of models makes me
> think of Borges' story (I don't remember what it's called) about an
> ancient race of mapmakers -- they are perpetually dismayed at the
> inability of their maps to model reality adequately; eventually they
> make a map of their empire which is as large as the empire and coincides
> point for point with the empire.

Done earlier by Lewis Carroll. Can't recall the book, though.

Modelers, by the way, are the bane of any cartographer with an aesthetic
sense.

"I'm gonna crunch this number upside yo' haid!"

Ted Samsel....tejas at infi.net 
  "I want the frimfram sauce with the orson-fay
         and chifaffa on the side...."