Posted on 09/04/2002 11:23:46 AM PDT by betty boop
If at first you don't succeed ... ;-}
I don't mean to suggest that what Wolfram does in this extraordinary book is worthless. Quite the contrary. I might like his methods, but still be unconvinced by some of the inferences he draws from his conclusions.
IMHO A New Kind of Science is simply a great and in many ways exceptionally elegant book. It has pride of place on my #1 bookshelf, right up there with the volumes of Eric Voegelin. And that's saying a lot, believe me. :^)
Wolfram insists he's working solidly within the rationalist, scientific tradition, Seeker204. And as far as I can tell, he is. My maunderings and scribblings in regard to his worldview are based, not on his main narrative, but on sources in his End Notes. They are my own interpretation. Though I believe my remarks are accurate, others are free to disagree.
Anyhoot, it would make me sad to think that anything I've done here constitutes a reason for someone deciding he doesn't want to read this book! It's a great book, and I hope it will be widely read.
BTW, I’m sorry it has taken so long to reply, I’ve been out of town until just yesterday – and there is so much “meat” in your posts, I wanted to mull them over really well before attempting a reply.
I wonder if Wolfram’s religious attitude isn’t but a form of naturalism with a twist. In the Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) there is a distinct separation between the spiritual realm and the natural realm. I understand that the Eastern religions are focused on a oneness which is the universe, and in some beliefs, when a spirit departs one form it is recycled into another – a kind of naturalism with a conscience which is homogeneous to the whole.
Looking at it that way, a spiritual realm and a Creator would be excluded per se because the view only marginally exceeds the pure naturalist view of “all that there is.” That is, Wolfram would only wander beyond all things physical into some form of intelligence to the extent necessary to accept what he believes to exist, i.e. a primordial algorithm.
And that’s where I believe he hesitates and thus falls short of what he could achieve. He specifically eschews a separate spiritual realm or Creator (emphasis mine:)
I agree with you, that his theological speculations constitute his fundamental “world view,” and thus supply the overriding context in which he conducts his exploration. And whereas he excuses himself in the quote you mentioned, as you observe the disease is systematic reductionism!
I do agree that we should not throw the baby out with the bath water. Wolfram’s new kind of science is a giant step in the right direction, IMHO. And yes, I agree with your assessment that world class scientists in our age are compelled to explain all things in naturalist terms in order to be taken seriously. Wolfram dares to make a step beyond and will no doubt suffer for it!
I wonder if he actually senses the need to go beyond the “Buddhist” limitation but restrains himself. What you observe about the irony of it is so very true: human thinking doesn’t much matter in the Buddhist universe, at least in terms of social relations, or relations to the wider world. Any thinking that is being committed at all under such a thought regime is, in a way, designed to extinguish thought itself which, if considered as such at all, is usually identified as a reliable source of human pain.
If he does sense the full picture, with all his personal success, perhaps he will eventually throw caution to the wind and say what needs to be said, that the primordial algorithm is a creation and not a Creator, that God is – outside of the natural realm, i.e. the creation (space, time, energy, momentum, geometry, etc.)
The Scripture you quote is one of the most revealing IMHO: In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God, and the Word was with God. That passage in John 1 goes on to say that Christ is the Word made flesh and that all that was created was by Him. The Bible tells us repeatedly that He spoke it into being.
In my view, the Word is the “DNA” of God, and the Bible is one of His names – a description of Himself. After four decades of walking with the Lord, the beauty and simplicity of it is become clear to me.
As you observe, Christianity meets Wolfram’s characteristics for the model:
(2) Wolfram: Its rules of conduct are simple, to which you observe People who read the Bible know (or should know) how simple the rules of the universe and of human being and existence really are
(3) Wolfram: Its model describes a system designed to unfold in time, to which you observe The rules were definitely intended to unfold over time.
And that’s where Roger Penrose runs right past him by observing that artificial intelligence has its limitations and that the algorithm itself, in many instances, exists apart from our own ability to sense it. For instance, when even our greatest minds stand awestruck by the implication of complex numbers and the Mandelbrot set.
Thank you oh so very much for this wonderful conversation!!!
Wolfram has pointed out his machine solutions to many mathematical situations as being possibly the way math will be done and the basic three equations, Laplace, heat, and wave, are only a tiny spectrum of possible math of use in science.
However, it turns out that most interesting differential equation type of math as used in science these days is already being done on machine since it actually can't be done by hand. The solutions that can be derived by hand are very limited and few and far between, and already solved long ago.
So what this means is that Wolfram is mainly pointing out what is already happening in applied math. He has noted a few classes of solution that aren't trivial and aren't chaotic, but that probably isn't important since a chaotic solution might be the desired solution depending on the conditions, initial and boundary conditions. Wolfram's book, therefore is interesting on some level, but a mathematician could blast through it in a very short time and a philosopher might like to stay a while longer just for the wealth of examples that might spark an idea. All the same, it is a fine coffee-table book and ought to be popular at Mensa meetings.
Goodness, RightWhale, I certainly hope not! Have you read his extraordinary book? If so, please share your thoughts?
Had to set it aside in Sept, about 1/3 read, to further my formal education. Have a much clearer idea now what it is about, both the book and math.
He doesn't seem to be so far out now. Mainstream, actually. Don't know that he will ever have a math object tagged with his name, like the Poisson Kernal for example. All the same, the book should do some good for those who aren't intending to develop their math or science skills to a high level.
I am still digesting this work, read over the summer. Still, the take you give above, somehow or other, doesn't seem to comport with what I understand Wolfram had in mind WRT the present work. I rather thought he was challenging the sufficiency of math or science skills as they are presently understood and critically assessed.
Think about it. Here's a dude who spent some 20 years digitally modelling every and any "complex system" that he could lay his hands on. Including everything from simple programs of his own design, the evolution of which were stipulated by means of various "neighbor rules"; to the typical rotational habit of vegetal leaves on their stems; to the binary digit sequence of pi, primes, or Fibonacci numbers; to virtually anything else that came to his notice that was the least bit "digitally model-able." (Regarding his method, I got the distinct notion that the universe might look a tad "different" in Base Two than it does in Base Ten....)
At the end of the day, he found all the systems he was able to model resolve (in one way or another) into a mere 256 patterns -- 2 to the 8th power. Which themselves resolve into only four (2 to the 2nd power) different classes.
Class 1 cellular automata rapidly evolve either into uniformity or extinction; Class 2 CAs resolve into the redundancy of predictable patterns; Class 3 exhibit patterning, but such patterns as do not communicate information to future iterations of the program; Class 4 -- and there are only a teeny few of these, maybe two or three (Wolfram's "jury" is still "out" on that one) -- exhibits patterning that does communicate with future iterations of the program -- to such degree that the future iterations depend in some way on the iterations of the past.
Wolfram, I gather, wants us to look at the behavior of complex, dynamic systems per se. This is what he hopes will give us a "new model of science."
Against this experiential background, truly he does challenge present-day scientific orthodoxies (for example, biological Natural Selection or the Law of Entropy Increase). But he only does so -- it is my firm conviction -- because he loves science so much that he wants to keep it honest.
My two cents worth. FWIW.
So far, my view on Wolfram is that he has taken a forest view of nature and discovered how truly elegant and algorithmically simple it is. I believe most scientists work among the trees.
Simplicity and elegance is a hallmark of Einstein's genius, it "rings true" to my spirit and is why I place a high value to such work.
Beautiful, Alamo-Girl! Thank you so much for this insight.
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