Singularity (systems theory)

In the study of unstable systems, James Clerk Maxwell in 1873 was the first to use the term singularity in its most general sense: that in which it refers to contexts in which arbitrarily small changes, commonly unpredictably, may lead to arbitrarily large effects. In this sense, Maxwell did not differentiate between dynamical systems and social systems. He used the concept of singularities primarily as an argument against determinism or absolute causality. He did not in his day deny that the same initial conditions would always achieve the same results, but pointed out that such a statement is of little value in a world in which the same initial conditions are never repeated. In the late pre-quantum-theoretic philosophy of science, this was a significant recognition of the principle of underdetermination.