Re: Algorithmic Revolution?

From: <vznuri.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 17:26:07 -0700

RS reformulates/reduces the term "algorithmic revolution" as:

>1. A social revolution..
>2. A scientific revolution..
>3. An epistemological revolution..
>4. A mathematical revolution..

all true. however, wolfram-fredkin-zuse et al are not merely proposing a
mere "epistemological revolution" as you state with (3). they're
saying, the "next state" of the universe _really_is_ a
computation, that we really are (and all reality is)
built out of cells in a very large 3D or 4D cellular automaton. its
not merely a metaphor. in this sense it probably cannot be seen on
the same level as the clockwork mechanism for the universe, or
the "universe-as-energy" from the thermodynamic/industrial/steam
engine perspective.

this is a physical hypothesis about the universe. so far it
is not yet testable or falsifiable. but I would argue there
is very good circumstantial evidence.

RS says (3) is "potentially as wrong as the clockwork model
of the universe". but, I would argue the clockwork model
is not really "wrong", only that it was a steppingstone that
is now obsolete or incomplete relative to new data. it was an
outstanding metaphor for reality & is arguably still a very strong
element of all modern scientific thought.

with 4, RS says this refers to "algorithmic information theory"
and "the jury is still out" on it.
technically this is the name for the field that is
involved with compressibility, i.e. chaitin-kolmogorov ideas
(is this what RS meant?). which
is mostly seen as a specialized subfield of computational
complexity theory. this is a strange reduction from my point of
view & is definitely not the mathematical revolution associated
with "the algorithmic revolution" I referred to earlier.
Received on Wed Nov 20 2002 - 19:38:50 PST