Butterfly – The Binding Chaos Lexicon

An idea which can cause a hurricane of change. Reference to the butterfly effect.

Expanded explanation

A butterfly, in Marsh's usage, is a small idea with the potential to set off enormous change, named directly for the butterfly effect. In chaos theory the image is of a butterfly's wingbeat seeding a distant hurricane, a tiny initial difference amplifying into a vast outcome. Marsh applies this to ideas: the right idea, seemingly minor when it appears, can propagate through a system and produce transformation out of all proportion to its size. The term fits her wider account of how change actually spreads, not through commanded, top-down programmes but through ideas taken up and acted on by many autonomous people, the stigmergic and idea-based collaboration her framework describes. A butterfly is the seed of that process, the small input whose consequences, given the right conditions, become a hurricane.

Examples

A small idea, a large consequence: An idea that looks minor when it first appears but propagates into sweeping change is a butterfly in Marsh's sense.
Change without a commander: The butterfly captures how transformation can begin from a tiny input taken up widely, rather than from a directed programme.

How others use it

The butterfly effect comes from Edward Lorenz's work in chaos theory, the sensitive dependence of complex systems on initial conditions, where a minute change can lead to a wholly different outcome. Marsh applies it specifically to ideas as the initiating small cause, connecting it to her account of how change spreads through autonomous, action-based collaboration.