[A couple of questions] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS ForumA New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum
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A couple of questions
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Posted by: Simon85
I am wondering what people find so convincing about NKS, since the book offers really no proof, and a plethora of bald assertions about things that are unproven.
I would be interested for someone to explain to me how it is possible for randomness to generate order? It doesn't work both ways order can generate randomness not the other way around, as can be seen in NKS order is inherent to the rules of Cellular Automata.
If one assumes for a moment that the theory is correct, then all notions of ethics go out the window and science becomes a useless undertaking. Since if everything is based on random ubiquitous computing, then what is science trying to prove?
Also if someone could tell me how it is even remotely possible for Cellular Automata which generates low levels of complexity to generate even so much as a single cell?
It seems to me that the flaw in the thesis is that it fails to deal with levels of complexity and seems to use pictures as proof, where all that is demonstrated is that one can generate something that looks natural, which is of course no proof that it is how the system works.
As far as I know, and I have surveyed all 500 plus works citing NKS and read NKS and all lectures published on NKS, and to my knowledge nobody has show NKS to capable of describing the complexity of the human mind.
It seems to me that the book leaves out a good chunk of the equation since it fails to deal in a well reasoned fashion with Biology, Chemistry , Philosophy, or ethics, all of which would be essential to deal with in a theory like this.
Further the idea leaves out intelligent design, but this is a problem since the theory then fall into the same issues as evolution which cannot justify right and wrong, nor can it explain how something comes from nothing, and if there was already something there before the world, where did it come from?
-Simon
Posted by: N'Abs Rel
You cannot receive such answer
Try to read Douglas Adams books ;)
Posted by: Gershom Zajicek M.D.
Q: I am wondering what people find so convincing about NKS, since the book offers really no proof, and a plethora of bald assertions about things that are unproven
A: I do not expect NKS to be convincing. I like it because it is interesting
Q: I would be interested for someone to explain to me how it is possible for randomness to generate order?
A: Indeed it is impossible. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...ess.htm#examine
Q: If one assumes for a moment that the theory is correct, then all notions of ethics go out the window and science becomes a useless undertaking.
A: Science attempts to understand reality and is not concerned with ethics. Randomness has no ethical implication.
Q: Since if everything is based on random ubiquitous computing, then what is science trying to prove?
A: Randomness does not exist as such in nature. It is applied by the exact sciences to understand nature and contributed to some important theories, like statistical thermodynamics. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...mness.htm#creat
Q: Also if someone could tell me how it is even remotely possible for Cellular Automata which generates low levels of complexity to generate even so much as a single cell?
A: The complexity of a living cell cannot be generated with a simple program. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...ityofliving.htm
Q: It seems to me that the flaw in the thesis is that it fails to deal with levels of complexity and seems to use pictures as proof, where all that is demonstrated is that one can generate something that looks natural, which is of course no proof that it is how the system works.
A: A picture says more than thousand words.
Q: As far as I know, and I have surveyed all 500 plus works citing NKS and read NKS and all lectures published on NKS, and to my knowledge nobody has show NKS to capable of describing the complexity of the human mind.
A: No one will ever untangle the complexity of the human mind, even S. Wolfram
Q: It seems to me that the book leaves out a good chunk of the equation since it fails to deal in a well reasoned fashion with Biology, Chemistry , Philosophy, or ethics, all of which would be essential to deal with in a theory like this.
A: Even a genius like S. Wolfram is unable to master all these subjects in one book.
Q: Further the idea leaves out intelligent design, but this is a problem since the theory then fall into the same issues as evolution which cannot justify right and wrong, nor can it explain how something comes from nothing, and if there was already something there before the world, where did it come from?
A: http://www.what-is-cancer.com/paper...esisbetween.htm
Posted by: Simon85
Thanks for your reply
Q: If one assumes for a moment that the theory is correct, then all notions of ethics go out the window and science becomes a useless undertaking.
A: Science attempts to understand reality and is not concerned with ethics. Randomness has no ethical implication.
This is not true though since science is engaged in the study of truth and reality, if randomness is the center of your reality, then everything else is based on it, and it therefore makes ethics random, due to the fact that they are based in a random universe, if that is indeed the basis.
Q: It seems to me that the flaw in the thesis is that it fails to deal with levels of complexity and seems to use pictures as proof, where all that is demonstrated is that one can generate something that looks natural, which is of course no proof that it is how the system works.
A: A picture says more than thousand words.
True, but it is no substitute for scientific rigor... not that I would claim that we are not in need of a new science in fact I too have been working on the same problem for 2 years now, but one needs to make sure that one proves with proper current methods, until one establishes new methods.
I think the biggest issue is that it is based on the unproved theory of computational equivalence which means that the whole theory is shaky at best since the foundation as it were is more of a virtual one then a real one. Personally I don't think it supports the weight of the book since without that piece the theory falls apart. In my opinion he needed to spend more time proving that to the satisfaction of everyone, and then publish this, and part of that is submitting ones work to peer review, and that is the other key problem the book reads as one would expect from a work that was not peer reviewed.
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
None of this is worth anyone's time.
Since however everyone wants to play at amateur hour philosophy and mere rhetoric and no one is interested in actual science, we play.
"the book offers really no proof"
Try to get one of the CA patterns to come out some other way. Exact formal results are exact formal results, as proven as the multiplication table.
Items like the convergence of the CA fluid model to the same results as the Navier-Stokes equation in the continuum limit are as proven as anything in any physics textbook.
The foundations of mathematics section finds the shortest possible axioms for logic. See the proof on pages 810 to 811. Next people will say there isn't any proof in Russell's Principia.
The simplest known universal systems are explicitly constructed, etc.
Taking it with maximum charity, the statement is thinking of some specific overarching proposition. But since it fails to state what that is, I'd be reduced to guessing.
Proof is a useful tool and where it is formally possible NKS makes some use of it. It is not equivalent to truth or to evidence, to say nothing of science. Its proper domain is the formally verifiable. Science's proper domain is the empirically falsifiable. Expecting them to coincide just shows a basic lack of familiarity with either. All science proceeds by conjecture, which is also more important in mathematics than is commonly supposed.
The basic proposition of the book is that a new kind of science is possible in which the traditional role of mathematical equations as formal models of real processes, is replaced by the broader (but inclusive of equations) class of simple computer programs. It proposes a generalization of our formal methods, and it then proceeds to give formal results about the typical behaviors seen in that broader formal model class.
That such an extension is possible is demonstrated - one simply does it. That it may prove fruitful is merely sketched and suggested, by a wide range of simple cases and by the range of phenomena seen in the formal class and in natural system parallel to them. People looking for ways to understand particular systems by making formal models of them, are excited about having a wider range of forms to chose from and match to what they find.
"how it is possible for randomness to generate order?"
Trivial and does not even need NKS. Add up enough independent random trials and you will get Gaussian statistics, definitely a kind of order. So much so, you can approximate Pi by dropping needles. Micro chaos ensures suitable averages are sharply peaked at their mean, etc.
But dropping the assumption of independence and looking at it in more NKS terms, we also expect to see randomness generate order whenever the rules or mappings we are considering are many to one - "contractions", we say.
Fixed points are the simplest example. Rule 0 trivially turns any random initial conditions into the same pattern. (In jest I call in the bureaucratic rule - whatever you put into it, it does what it was going to do anyway).
In a more involved sense, we regularly find attractors in CA evolutions that assemble wide ranges of initial conditions into the same cycle, or a few variants.
Example - look at a sample of 100 random initial conditions of rule 54 for some modest width. Almost all will develop a cycle with period exactly 4 steps. There is a stable background of alternating blocks, 3 black 1 white repeated across, with the line below a shifted version of it. In 4 steps that shift was returned to an identical configuration. Sometimes different particle-like stable local structures also persist, and sometimes they move across the whole array, giving a long period.
In rule 73 from random initials we see another way in which randomness can give rise to order. A simpleparticular configuration in that rule - 2 black cells next to each other - forms a stable and impenetrable barrier to any change or spread of information. In any random initial, there will be some such 2 cell blocks, by sheer chance, and their spacing across the pattern will follow a known statistical law. Leaving separate "pipes" between, with a spectrum of varying widths.
Each of those being of limited size inside and each effectively isolated from all the others, they behave as systems of limited size. They have a limited number of possible configurations, and being deterministic must repeat their previous trajectory as soon as they hit one of them a second time. Well then, once run for a number of steps greater than the number of configurations possible in a pipe that narrow, they must cycle. This is true in each pipe. Beyond the time needed for the last to cycle, all are cycling, though perhaps with different periods. At a multiple of all the periods since the last entered its cycle, the whole configuration must be one seen before, and the whole therefore repeats as well.
What seems counterintuitive to someone with no experience with the formal cases themselves, therefore shows itself to be trivial to someone who has actually bothered to follow the argument and makes some experiments and learn about what is being discussed. Randomness readily leads to order, either in averages or in exact detailed configurations, by any of a number of distinct methods, depending on the system one actually has and the formal characteristics of its rule. There are instrinsic randomness generators and there are intrinsic order generators - neither is in the least impossible or even hard to find.
"all notions of ethics go out the window"
A strict non sequitur. You have not demonstrated that anything about ethics depends on natural systems obeying mathematical equations rather than computer programs, nor any dependence of ethics on "occasionalism" or strict indeterminacy as opposed to either. The latter might be an objection to determinism or perhaps to science, but not to NKS as distinguished from OKS. But in fact, philosophers and even theologians have argued every single one of the four boxes - ethics sound or ethics illusory, determinism or indeterminism - and have alleged necessities running in each direction from one to the other.
In the book Wolfram makes clear his own view is that ethics is sound and determinism is true. But both are his philosophic views, for which the science of NKS provides some evidence or plausibility, but without entailing either judgment. You can have simple program models with explicit randomness in them if you want.
You can explain that randomness as an extra dimension of rule 30 random number generators sitting on top of your system elements and pseudorandomly but deterministically injecting the randomness seen, or you can explain it as underlying metaphysical randomness of some QM variety, entirely up to you. The behavior afterward is unaffected - you have a stochastic simple program model of everything that happens after or "above") that.
Similarly on ethics, you can point to philosophers who say everything is from all eternity chaos and willfulness and deduce from it that morality is an illusion (e.g. Nietzsche), others who claim that everything is deterministically ordered in a rational whole and deduce from it that ethics is the highest subject (e.g. Spinoza), etc etc. All possible positions have been argued, no one view on determinism entails any specific view on ethics nor vice versa.
"science becomes a useless undertaking"
Obviously science is not a useless undertaking, because specific systems that possess models of how portions of their environment behave interact with that environment in vastly superior ways compared to other systems that have no idea what their environment consists of etc.
What science is always trying to do is find real knowledge of how some aspect of the real world actually works. If there were no order in how the real world actually works (or perhaps even more exactingly, if we couldn't even put one there), then science might be useless. But there is, and it isn't. Which refutes occasionalism (the idea that anything whatever might just happen, or more strictly anything not logically inconsistent), not determinism.
Science is not trying to "prove" anything. Mathematics does, because it wants to generalize known formal truths as far as possible, so it tracks exactly what was required to establish formal truth A or B. Science wants to know things - and knowing is a lot easier than proving. Still hard enough to be work - perhaps that is why so many people seem to prefer the entirely optional sports of rhetoric.
What NKS wants to know about some particular system, then, is how it works, what its rule is, the "go of it" as Ashby liked to put it. We want to find a transformation rule that mimics the transformations we see the system run through. Strictly, we want to find isomorphisms to abstractions of limited aspects of some real system, with the idea that we can then investigate the formal properties of that isomorphism, as a purely mathematical object, and expect to find many of them also present in the real case. This is no different from noticing that radioactive decay, growth unconstrained by resources, and compound interest all follow the same mathematical law (exponentials).
"Cellular Automata which generates low levels of complexity"
Some CAs generate low levels of complexity, and are suitable models for various simple real processes. Other CAs provably are as complicated as any computation, therefore also as anything that can be done by any finite algorithm, and at least for those who subscribe to Church's thesis, as anything realizable in our universe.
If you don't have a finite algorithm that does something, you can wonder whether or not it is feasible as a computation. If you have one, then there exists a CA which can do the like. If the former is your situation, then your difficulty is not with CAs, but with any model at all.
If the real components of and evolution of the system are quite unlike a CA in details, then you'd never want to use a CA model of it. Even if in principle there is some configuration of a universal CA that might get you input-output pairs you want etc. Universality is not a reason to model everything as this one Turing machine. It is a reason to expect that any behavior one sees will have some computable analog or formal model, and to look for or construct such models in the space of computer programs.
This is no different from the way mathematical models have always been used. Anything that can be measured can have a number put on it, and we know how to find formulas to match sets of numbers; anything that can be finitely brought about can have some code written for it.
"it fails to deal with levels of complexity"
It denies that there are any levels past the threshold of universality. It claims there are simple cases, with a handful of characteristic behaviors (fixed points, limit cycles, nested, local versions of each or several) and there is the vast sea of complicated ones, all of which are of equivalent sophistication. Some of those most sophisticated cases, from typical initials as opposed to any possible initial, have their own handful of characteristic behaviors (intrinsic generation of randomness, localised structures, stable backgrounds and defects, sensitivity, etc).
But for any specific behavior, have some other special case initial that makes them dance that way, showing the same flexibility our practical computers have. Nobody thinks everything a laptop can ever be made to do can be deduced from its normal unprogrammed behavior as a hunk of silicon. But we know the spectrum of complicated things it can do for specific initial states, is very broad. In detail, not macro averages (we aren't making a claim about its possible range of tempertures e.g.).
"use pictures as proof"
NKS uses proof as proof, see above. It uses pictures to convey data about formal systems rapidly. And it uses comparisons of pictures between models and real cases to show plausible relationships or identities between causes and effects in formal and in real cases. A parameterized formal model generates shell shapes. As the parameters are tuned, the space of shell shapes seen in a museum flash across the screen. The simple growth parameters of the model clearly account for the variety of shell shapes, in the sense that a local growth rate of X will inevitably produce shell shape Y. This does not explain why shell Y has growth rate X, but it does show how it works, the go of it, and tells people what control to look for. We say it reduces the problem of accounting for the shape to finding the local growth rate control. That is what formal models do. Objecting to it is objecting to science and a misunderstanding.
"one can generate something that looks natural, which is of course no proof that it is how the system works."
Proof is for mathematics, in science we want knowledge not proof. And thinking a shell is grown by solving an Euler equation is not more helpful than knowing that, instead, it inevitably must result from this and that particular growth rate parameters. The shell does look that way because its growth rates were in that specific ratio. This is exactly the same fitting that goes on when we verify a mathematical law of gravity. Bodies all move in conic sections, ergo the law involved is inverse square. Shell shapes are all in this parameter space, ergo the law involved is this ratio allometry. Same exact process.
"I have surveyed all 500 plus works citing NKS"
I've actually read them. Not even my day job lol.
"nobody has shown NKS to capable of describing the complexity of the human mind."
Here is the succinct description, which if you had read NKS you would already know. Human minds are universal computers, as sophisticated as any process in the universe, and therefore in principle capable of an imaginable finite computation. But so are many of the processes around us, which we can thus "keep pace with" but not "outrun". It is precisely those complicated enough that we can't outrun them that appear complicated to us. For the excellent reason that they are. As for the actual behavior of any such system, NKS tells us it may in general depend on each and every detail within that specific system. And that therefore the only thing we can do to explain or anticipate it, is to step through its actual process pretty much as it does, doing an irreducible amount of computational work, just as it does.
Which explains the complexity of the human mind, explains why it is complex, explains what it can do in principle, and explains why it is ridiculous to expect to fully predict what any given mind might do, in practice, without simply performing the experiment or watching what it actually does. Some things are left to empiricism. Reread the last sentence of the book - if you read it the first time, which I have reason to doubt.
"a good chunk of the equation"
Well yes, since its claim is that it isn't an equation but a program. Just a quibble about a figure of speech that shows how deep the old mindset goes.
"fails to deal in a well reasoned fashion"
I've no idea what you think that means, but all are addressed in NKS at considerable length. Nor is your "a theory like this" transparently clear.
"Further the idea leaves out intelligent design"
It doesn't leave it out, it rejects it. "What I do in this book goes significantly further than traditional science in getting rid of notions of purpose from investigations of nature... simple programs constructed without known purposes are what one needs to study to find the kinds of complex behavior we see". 1185.
Why do people feel compelled to present principled disagreement as some sort of oversight? Men are allowed to disagree with you.
As for theological questions, if you read the notes you will find the book addresses them at length in a few, and in passing in many places. Theology is not ID, philosophy is neither ID nor theism, and science is none of the above. Philosophical questions are always open, but can never dictate to science.
Also, I would sincerely appreciate it if people utterly uninterested in NKS, either scientifically or philosophically, would go get themselves some forum software (which is cheap to free and easy to use) and make their own website, instead of slobbering all over ours.
Posted by: Simon85
You know I was going to answer this long post but it then occured to me that this post is a post that is not reasoned or thought about, and it presupposes things to be correct misdefines willfully misunderstands, and is in general a venting of feelings.
So to answer this would be irrational but I will say that I am impressed that someone directly from NKS team responded...
If you want to compare knowledge of sceince and philosophy thats a pointless excercise since your proof is based in a book which as you stated makes little use of formal proof.. or in other words is unproved....
I would advise that you look in the world around you and read NKS, and then look at it from the fields of Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Philosophy, and within the realm of ethics and tell me NKS is right.
Personally my study of Quantum Physics,Quantum Mechanics, Neurosciene, Philosphy, Computer Science, Synthetic Biology, Molecular Biology, Theoretical Physics, Some Astrophysics... and a number of other areas (don't beilieve me my library of read books is more then 5000 books and papers) leads me after reading the book to dismiss it since while it is true that a new science is need NKS is not a new science it is a popularization of CA and an overstatement of what is proved which is very little since computational equiv. is unproven by Wolframs own admission.
a summary of a quote by aristotle
"The perfection of nature is in its simplicity"
The idea of NKS has been around for 2600 years...
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
It is the mark of an educated mind not to expect more certainty in the treatment of a subject than the nature of the subject admits.
It may be apocryphal, but the story is told that in the high middle ages at some university where Aristotle was read, the practice was to fine anyone who disagreed with a proposition out of Aristotle in public, 1 shilling. That's if they recanted on it being pointed out to them. Otherwise they'd be expelled. It may be an exaggeration, much mud having been flung at the schoolmen and some of it hardly deserved. At any rate, it is not a mark of an educated mind to demand demonstration in a dialectical subject.
As for the rest, there is more philosophy in the notes to NKS than in anything you've ever written, and probably than you've ever thought, and sounder too. Not that any of it is what the book is about. Riches just spill out of full cups, while dry ones rattle but teach nothing. Isn't rhetoric fun? Look how easy.
Posted by: Simon85
Well you don't know that since you don't know me, and since you have proved to be a venting promoter of an ideology I will deal with you in the level that is proper.
My knowledge of science and philosophy is more then adequate to dismiss NKS as a work of pseudo-science since my mastery of science is over more fields then NKS represents in specific and detailed manner.
You who are not a scientist should refrain from any arguments about science. You would do well to think about the fact that NKS is not a proof of NKS. And to quote NKS to someone who disagrees with it is pointless since you have stated it doesn't use traditional proof, in other words a theory and an unproved one. And NKS is not fact because you say so it has to be proven.
On the topic of childishness I would expect a greater maturity from the forum moderator, who is acting like a child old who is relegate to flinging insults.
If we want to talk of marks of education an educated mind does not make claims without proof, and doesn't let simple question get under their skin.
I would appreciate it if you want to have a dialog that you attempt to understand the topic and the topic of science and philosophy and that it is far greater then NKS. If what you are looking for a contest of wits, I can stoop to lower levels and meet you half way, but that would be childish... so why don't you meet me halfway and try a dose of reason and have a conversation minus petty insults.
And by the way on Rhetoric, if you read Aristotle on Rhetoric the point is to see the available means of persuasion.
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
Every statement you have made about NKS has been and is false, and none shows the slightest familiarity with its contents. Every statement you have made about proof in relation to it and to my own comments has been and is false, and none shows the slightest familiarity with proof or its uses, nor any attention to my prior comments.
And anyone remotely familiar with the cross section of Aristotle and ethics would recognize the origin of my previous comment to you, on precisely the subject you claim no one educated accepts anything without etc. The available means of persuasion apparently sailed right over your head. You have offered nothing, you are clearly uninterested in NKS, raising the question: why on earth are you here? Merely to disrupt?
Posted by: Simon85
You know what this is pointless you are hopelessly sold on NKS, and I could use logical syllogisms to prove my point and you'd accuse me of illogic. You abuse Aristotle with misinterpretation... you're childish... in making claims about my knowledge since you don't know me, and I would in the context highly doubt you read as much as I do...
"It is the mark of an educated mind not to expect more certainty in the treatment of a subject than the nature of the subject admits."
Yes well thats true, but I am not expecting more of it I was asking questions to see if anyone could deal with them... And I was right NKS cannot generate enough complexity for a single cell... NKS cannot explain much more then computational systems like what I am using to post, and leaves, animal patterns, and snowflakes...
Your arguments have nothing to do with truth only with NKS and its right, which you still have failed to prove due to the fact that NKS cannot prove itself with the central role Comp. Equiv. being as stated by NKS unproven...
Now if my intention was to disrupt I would do a much better job... but I think that if you think about it I asked questions and you made some answers which are wrong... they are right in the unproven context of NkS and are wrong in reality...
So lest I waste more time on you I shall discontinue this pointless line of foolishness with a hopelessly sold believer in Stephen Wolfram... who's mind by his own admission is comparable to a rusty bucket of nails... so I guess yours is to if you honestly believe in NKS...
But I happen to think and be able to prove otherwise....
Ah this was fun... its been a while.... Its not everyday you can deal with pseudo science, or with people who believe it implicitly... so I thank you for that...
Come back and talk to me again when you can reason about NKS within the rules of NKS and the book and outside of the rules, since you only seem to have the first mastered... But this is comforting since this is no better then any-other answers to these questions I've gotten from others who believe in NKS... lower the level and everyones a scientist is what this proves...
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
lol. Yes invite me to come back to the site I built and run. Of course I agree with most of the NKS book, I helped write it. (Actually Wolfram and I disagree on a number of points, in some cases just things he is more confident about than I am, etc - all on broader philosophy topics rather than the scientific substance, though). If you had shown the slightest actual argument or point at any time it would have been pleasant enough. You didn't.
Posted by: Simon85
Actually the reason I posted the questions was because NKS did not satsify me... I take issue with Comp. Equiv. and I have stated twice why and neither of those times did you answer.
So here it is again:
How does Comp. Equiv. explain the heirarchy we see in nature where we systems built on top of system and the complexity is relative to the level of the system ie the difference between a single cell and person is greater then a person compared to a person. But this shouldn't be the case according to NKS right? they should be equal in their complexity.
I will be the first to admit CA is useful I am currently using it in a project in computation, my argument has been that since I disagree comp. equiv. and have not seen any solid argument for it, that CA cannot explain the world we see around us any more then Blue Gene super computer can..
So I would say NKS either forms an incomplete piece of hardware or an incomplete piece of software. I don't disagree with Universal computation you see it in computer all the time obviously, but NKS doesn't propose one that will work in the long term.
I was attempting to see what people find to be convincing not for someone to preach at me, so you find it convincing because you helped write it.
What I want from some one is evidence of the brain as universal computer since it seems to me that the brain like nature is a hieratrchy of systems...
Further CA is monadic system correct? On cannot combine results as far as I can rememeber, now you are correct I haven't read the book real recently, but from my recollection it shows emulation to synthesis of the systems.
I guess thats not interest... well who am I to say
And by the way I am not a scientist as you say I am a theorist and an engineer, who applies a broad view of science and math with a have theoretical element...
The definition science I folllow is one that is heavily based in proof in my line of work no proof no money, so a pure pursuit of knowledge is not to useful.
-Simon
Posted by: Sean Lynch
The problem with NKS is not that it's difficult to understand, but that it's deceptively easy to convince yourself that you understand it when you don't.
In studying NKS, I have found that I've continually repeated a process of convincing myself that I understand it only to say later on, "Oh... Now I get it."
It is a very large book not even including the notes. Looking back I realize that I didn't have even the foggiest understanding of NKS after reading it the first time. The second time was a little better and now that I've spent more time with it and read through most of the notes I think I'm starting to assimilate the ideas it describes. In order to have a true understanding of NKS, the notes are just as important as the main text. Unfortunately, they are also very difficult to get through and (it seems) rarely read by most people who have negative reactions to the ideas of NKS.
Simon85, in reading your posts, I find that you don't have a complete understanding of NKS principles. While I can see that you've read the main text, you seem to have misunderstood parts of it.
I also get the impression that you made your decision about the validity of NKS before even reading it. As I've found well versed scientists often do, you were opposed to anyone changing what you already know. With the title, A NEW Kind of Science, the book has the potential to make disbelievers of individuals before even being read.
Would it be possible for you to open up your mind to something new and re-read the book - maybe even the notes too?
From reading your posts I believe there is one major sticking point in your understanding of NKS. Your idea of what NKS says about proof and the role that scientific "proof" plays in NKS is wrong.
Jason tried to explain it to you:
"Proof is a useful tool and where it is formally possible NKS makes some use of it. It is not equivalent to truth or to evidence, to say nothing of science. Its proper domain is the formally verifiable. Science's proper domain is the empirically falsifiable."
You keep bringing up the idea of proof, which is not central to NKS at all - nor is it central to science in general. Proof is part of Mathematics. No scientific theories are proven. They simply are accepted based on evidence until any credible evidence says otherwise.
I believe NKS will follow the same path of acceptance based on evidence, and the book, in my mind, does a good job of putting forth evidence to support a new way of thinking about science.
You state that the book's principles are shaky because they are all based on the Principle of Computational Equivalence which is not proven.
It never will be! There will simply be more and more evidence supporting it and the book does a great job of providing evidence to this affect.
If you can't see that... Again, you need to re-read the book.
Posted by: Simon85
Thanks for posting...
You guys are killing me:
I fully admit the need for a new science in fact that is a current project which I am two years into I have thought that a new science was needed since I started studying fluids, AI and Quantum Mechanics.
But you did not answer my question how does NKS deal with hierarchy in nature? Atoms to elements, elements to compounds, compounds to chemicals....? Complexity is in my opinion relative to level on the hierarchy.... is what I would argue... that there are two levels of complexity one is as a whole everything in comparison with everything, but also in each section of the hierarchy of nature... What would NKS say is responsible for these systems being built on one another, since if I am not mistaken CA is a monadic system and is not readily combineable... and does not it would seem to me generate new rules for another system... so would the argument be parallel systems...?
I understand his point on proof... which I disagree with but thats a function the engineer in me... and due to my own view of science.
The issue with evidence is I wanted evidence that NKS can explain a cell, which I am not convinced of due to the fact that it denies levels of complexity which if I am right there is a hierarchy in nature of systems built off of eachother and that would in my opinion and from looking at the evidence if one studies each level in depth would imply in my mind levels of complexity.
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
You continue to regard your own lack of comprehension or belief in some unformulated alternative position you haven't remotely explained, as some sort of criticism of or argument against a position you show no signs of understanding. And it simply isn't. You address a position in substance, only by engaging its own claims and on its own terms.
You can have all the towered hierarchies you like, as a simple consequence of the formal independence of any rule from the specifics of its underlying components. In layman's terms, the Taj Mahal-ness of the Taj Mahjal is in the arrangement and not in the bricks. That isn't even a point about complexity, just a basic one about formalism as such that lies at the base of any sort of systems theory. And it was a point well enough known to the schoolmen under the heading "fallacy of composition" and its analogs.
If you look at the universal CA construction in chapter 11 section 4 you will see that multiple levels of analysis are perfectly possible in CAs - or for that matter any other variety of simple program. What counts as a single "1" at a higher level of analysis may have elaborate internal structure - but if that elaborate structure just lets it act as a "1" in an emergent rule it is implementing, it is a brick in the arranged rule or behavior at that higher level.
NKS does not regard that as essential to the phenomenon of complexity. And for an excellent reason - if hierarchy were responsible for all complexity, then you would never see complexity in its absence. Remove cause, remove effect.
Ergo, the thesis that hierarchy is the cause of complexity requires every "flat" system to be simple. And this is not the case.
We learned as long ago as Bacon to disregard striking characteristics of a phenomenon, focused on by the understanding, if they are not the constant companions of what we are trying to link them to or explain.
Wolfram argues that computational sophistication is such a constant companion of phenomena we find complicated. Plenty of others proposed in the past by philosophers, epistemologists, prior theorists or other schools of thought, as fundamental to complexity, simply do not survive that examination of what is "necessary and sufficient". Half the point of finding complexity in very simple programs is to show that requirements far beyond them are not required for complex behavior to appear.
In a nutshell, any categorization of the origins of or requirements for complexity, that treats universal rule 110 and trivial rule 250 as equivalent is going to miss the real cause. The location of the specific difference between universality and its absence has been pinpointed much too exactly, for loose associations with special property A or B, to cut it anymore. Almost every prior characterization yet offered - including the fixation on hierarchy - will lump both into the same category, but their behavior does not fall into the same category.
People aren't more complicated than cells, they are both sufficiently complicated that their complexity matches or exceeds that of anything we see. They are both on a readily reachable ceiling in complexity measure.
Containing does not imply of greater complexity, instead levels are effectively orthogonal degrees of freedom. You can make a complicated Taj Mahal out of simple bricks or a simple circular shape out of intricate cells, as well as, obviously, a complex biological form out of intricate cells or a simple block out of simple bricks.
Anyone might argue that anything we don't yet know how to model is something "more" in a vague and arbitrary sense, than things we already can and do model or recreate. That isn't unreasonable when it remains a hunch or a reason to investigate. It is unreasonable when instead a pet solution is trotted out as supposedly obvious, that can be clearly seen not to answer the case.
This is not a point at odds with NKS on complexity, since it fully acknowledges that the actual behavior of any given universal system can depend on its specific details, in an arbitrarily involved way. Once across the universality threshold, we need formal experiment on the one hand and a lot of detailed empiricism on the other. NKS is in no way committed to nor does it advocate dismissing the empirical detail part. If you want to get universal system A right, you have to get into the details of universal system A.
Posted by: Simon85
You are not reading what I am saying.... please read my post and answer the specific question...
And actually I do understand NKS, its not hard, you fail to read what I say thats why you fail to answer my questions, and when I ask I don't want to know what NKS has to say I already know that I want someone to argue within the context of NKS on the question... read what I say context is important and stop making unsubstantiated claims about what I do or don't do which you wouldn't understand anyways and are completely ignorant of... not to mention I plain don't trust people on this forum so I would never dream of giving anything specifics...
You seem to have a set of canned arguments which is not answering the question and doesn't prove your point...
What I want is you to stand on your own two feet not NKS and stephen wolframs feet and reason with me about NKS on your own two feet which has nothing to do with throwing the book in my face.... but this seems to be a common thing since people seem to take NKS way to seriously for a theory that isn't new if you know any history at all...
I won't engage NKS on its terms since its terms, as I have been saying and keep ignoring like most people who don't grasp an area completely do, because they are incorrect, you cannot define your own logic an expect everyone to just accept it, since anyone who thinks about it won't accept it as evidenced by the lack of publications citing NKS its something like 0.387 per day so not even one per day and this is after a year. To be honest there is little to no use of the theory is most of the current lines of research further evidenced by the previous fact which with a calculator and some basic counting you can see for your self.
I f you want to prove NKS then prove it within both its own terms and classical terms if you can't then there is a problem, and just so you know since i know you care my theory doesn't run into this lovely problem... its called peer review...
Oh and to help you out please show me not from NKS make your own case for how CA will generate a cell... and see if your right... since i can say with a reasonable level certainty that you can't... and in the case of cells whats nice is all the new non NKS research and simulation is interms of detailing the complexity within which of course isn't the case since NKS says it isn't (I think that would be the response right?).
The proof of complexity can be done through simulation, and that being modeled from the real world not just generating rules on a computer and playing a matching game or another abstarct study of CA or simple systems. Thanks to the recent progress in simulation thanks to SGI and the like it makes it easier to appreciate the complexity in the hierarchies of nature and their relative levels of simplicity or complexity.
In the previous post I asked a question I did not make a cirticism...
And you have not answered... hierarchy is part the reason for complexity since systems are stacked on top of each other each made up of the other so one gets a composite complexity in the system. And I never said Hierarchy is responisible for complexity I said its part of it, ergo your ergo is meaningless (I love when people willfully misread and misunderstand).
I think the central issue is that this is supposed to be a cheerleading forum for NKS and I am the bad guy since I take issue with it in almost all respects but not quite all respects. Which seems to the main problem since people seem unwilling to answer the questions posed since they assume the only context is NKS, well logic dictates otherwise the means to convince would dictate otherwise, but you know this becuase you mastered philosophy right (well we'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, since you've given no evidence of that)
The other aspect is that one must look at the rules that govern the system ie the specific rules and primatives and then those must generate a new set of rules and primatives at the next level of complexity in the hierarchy... and on up... since there is relation between where the system fall and how complex they are if you look at them. But with in the speific area of the hierarchy the rule that governs is simple but as I said before in the two types of complexity the overall complexity increase while the specific stays low. Rather then saying all complexity is at the same level...
In the case of containing doesn't imply a greater level of complexity well in general maybe, but in the specific yes which I can prove not in posting since it would take to much room. But is obvious that the atoms are a simpler system then a cell which is simpler then a human, since the cells interact with one another to form a human.... but when one looks at a human one looks at the whole and moves down to the components which make up the whole which are simpler then the whole...
Universal CA is good for computing architectures its been very useful for the processor architecture that I have in the works, but it still cannot generate what I am talking about, since what I am looking for is the base of everything and a computational system implies a lower base then itself, ie where did the system come from, what caused it to form in this way.... and questions like that.
So what are the rule that govern everything regardless of whats their and then how do those rules evolve or change as complexity rises, since I would argue that complexity is not limited. But this is in part due to my own beliefs in intelligent design which is beyond the scope of this post, and all this shall be dealt with properly when I finish my book.
Yes I am quite aware of ch. 11 sec. 4 the complexity derived is still limited by the limitiations of the complexity that CA can describe which is far below the level of a cell. Unless there is some evidence of Universal CA generating some useful result ie generating a primative and rule that generates a more complex primative and rule like elements to compounds. Or better example DNA processes by which DNA become an organims. But what I would like to see is evidence of a rule that can generate from a simple CA a more complex CA by generating all rules necessary ie self contained system. Yes I know Universal CA can perform multi levels of analysis but can the rules evolve from the most simple without human interaction. And the interactions need to be such that any element can interact with any element as in Quantum Mechanics, but that is lost to view when you reach levels outside of the quantum world but still occurs under the surface.
I am not talking just about emulation I am talking about one becoming another while interacting with others at varying levels of complexity.
The other point is that of course if you break everything down to a basic level of complexity and generate enough rules to describe it all sure you can describe everything, the issue is this is just not a good idea. One is not going to find the rules for everything in CA, this is due to the limitations and the levels of complexity that are outside of the realm of science. This is why philosophy is important and ethics, when generating the basic rules of the universe all things must be related. And since philosophy and ethics regradless of what one may effect science in obvious and sometimes not so obvious ways (think early church and infulance on the view of the world as the center of the universe).
The answer lies in finding the basic rules that govern everything is taking all elments into account, which as I have said before NKS does not. Since it is clear that the way a lot of specific fields like molecular biology, neuro science... are not delt with in a sufficent manner, what I mean by this is that there is an assertion for example that the brain is a universal computer, well if you study the brain its a qunatum computer with the mind and the brain in a physical metaphysical relationship... which CA cannot deal with and which I believe and am currently trying to prove it can with a different approach, that places CA in a higher level above the most basic systems, since I have yet to see and don't quote NKS, a convicing argument for the universe being a computer, since what we see in the uninverse is far more diverse then CA can possibly concieve of. Computation is a system that is based in more fundamental rules that must be generated from somewhere and CA won't tell you that. But if one looks further and applies new methodologies of synthesis on can derive the most basic rules of reality.
All this to say generate all the rules and emulate all you like it won't get you the answer all it leads to is more rules that you have to generate. Thus a two fold approach a new ontolgy and a new math, both developed simultaneously.
(no computational cosmologies which have always failed in my opinion)
Now the reason I won't post most of the theory infact I really haven't said much besides those things which are similar to what is thought of is because I can't run the risk of the idea being stolen. I have had it happen on a number of projects from what should have been safe.
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
Oh.
lol.
What is happening here is that a frustrated IDer upset that the progress of understanding of complexity is taking away an old (unnecessary, superfluous) argument he liked, reads a few reviews of NKS and parrots concerns he sees in them.
The hierarchy point is not yours, it was made by Kurzweil and is also made much of by Bar-Yam. Neither of whom disputes the value of NKS or the fact that computational modeling is the way forward - they just have their own specific directions they think would be fruitful next for complexity theory, and their own research programs.
If you have to write a computer simulation to show what you are talking about or model it, then you are agreeing with the basic point of NKS, not disputing it. And if you put in all the levels you want but none of them is computation universal, you will get simplicity - you will get hierarchically arranged salt in a regular lattice and the like.
If you let any or several levels be computation universal then you will get complexity, because that is where it is coming from. If you want to model in detail a universal system on four separate levels, you will end up with a model that has four separate levels - not because it is more complex, but because you are being empirical and details can matter in any universal system etc. If what you want to simulate is hierarchy, naturally you will do so with a program that includes hierarchy.
What a hierarchically arranged universal rule can do is anything a computer program can do. Including programs with 38 levels of nested subroutines and a million lines of code. That is proven - a word you might remember - as soon as one shows they are over the universality threshold - to anyone who knows what that means. There isn't a simulation you can write, any number of levels in any language etc - that can't be compiled into a CA evolution or what-have-you. That is just the elementary fact at the base of all computer science - any program of any length or design in one universal language can be translated into any other, provided the latter is universal. If the hardware exists on which you can run your sim program, then it fits in a simple rule.
So your promissory models will all fit snuggly inside an NKS system. A good model will be as elaborated as what it wants to explain, to be sure, and nobody would want to use a slow-down complier. But you think there is a difference in principle where there simply isn't.
As for the metaphysical interface of the mind, in the age of software we are past finding the mind-body problem mysterious. It is pure form - and forms exist off in the platonic ether - that both thoughts and arranged charge on glorified sand are each brought into correspondance with, and thereby with each other. There are no 0s or 1s in a computer, programs are not made of matter, they are math-like, etc. The rest of that line of thought is hopeless.
As for ethics, I am quite sure I know far more of the history and realities of the theory of ethics than you do, and that all the priors you imagine are necessary for ethics or your own particular take on them, are entirely optional or orthogonal questions, which at one time or another have been taken in the opposite sense than you suppose by this or that thinker. Simply from the variety present in the history of ethical thought, I am able to say that - you yourself have had essentially nothing to say on the subject. (And hardly showed much familiarity even with the thinker you introduced when bringing it up - it is not like the "mark of an educated mind" comment is buried deep in the Nicomachaen Ethics).
If you state a supposedly necessary connection between basic physical or reality principle A and supposed ethical consequence B, I will produce the theorist who holds A and denies B. A few contemporary idealist theists imagine there is but one basis for ethics, but they simple lack historical awareness or imagination, or are grinding their own ax. It is easy to find prior thinkers who agree with them on ethics but disagree on all of the physical or reality propositions they pretend are necessary for them. But this is quite tangential to NKS.
How do I arrive at my overall diagnosis? No substantive or original points, does not acknowledge substantive points that are new to him or adjust the argument, repeats second hand concerns without understanding their logical connectives, thinks citing Aristotle is an argument, repeats quips from reviews in theological journals, etc.
Go write your book. But do go, please.
Posted by: Simon85
Your insights show no limits, you cannot even read what I say.... the issue here is you are to attached to NKS and you will straw-man make up stuff misread... to prove your point...
Its really amazing since you obviously have no idea what research I am talking about and I have never read the review that you are talking about actually.
In terms of your pitiful knowledge of philosophy let me assure I have plenty of sources with better credentials that agree with me then you will ever have.
You are a man stuck the past NKS is the past, your arguments have left all current research that has been done using current traditional mathematical models, and then simulating them in the computer, which is not a framework derived from NKS since that idea has been around may years before NKS.
And I don't have to write a computer sim to show what I am talking about and I never said I did. Apparently you failed all courses in basic logic and english.
And you continue to make spurious points based on info you don't have and won't get till the book is finished.
NKS is not progress in complexity it is progress in computer science with a limited explanation of complexity which if it was correct would be accepted by more people and not dismissed by as many people as it is...
As to your whole thing on ethics, it is you who lack imagination because it is you who fails to see the obvious connect, and tries with some basic logic to prove a point which is untenable by any sentient human...
"How do I arrive at my overall diagnosis? No substantive or original points, does not acknowledge substantive points that are new to him or adjust the argument, repeats second hand concerns without understanding their logical connectives, thinks citing Aristotle is an argument, repeats quips from reviews in theological journals, etc."
I don't think citing aristotle is an argument, its just fun to through it in there it has nothing to do with argument would like me to cite a new philosopher...? I have many more on the list....
You have know idea what NKS has accomplished it popularizes CA, it presents an old view of simple systems which has been know for years before hand think fractals... CA is not an NKS invention, the idea of the a universe as a computer was around before NKS, don't believe me go read a book.
"The hierarchy point is not yours, it was made by Kurzweil"
Its not his either.... actually the idea of hierarchy in nature was around for a long time, and it is a reasonable objection NKS since you have yet failed to explain how NKS would generate such a structure.
In all honesty you have not shown me through evidence that NKS can do anything outside of the book...
And just so we are clear a computer program will never ever generate life, to say it will is to misdefine what life is... you seem to have no concept of the connections of all subjects... Why don't you try studying a few subjects...
Did I ever claim the hierarchy point was mine... NO... did I get from where you say I did NO... do have any idea where anything I am talking about even comes from.... NO... why?
Because you are ignorant of what is out there in science and math that is not NKS as you continue to prove by failing each case to answer any question I pose and the most obvious explanation for that is NKS can't answer them.
"If the hardware exists on which you can run your sim program, then it fits in a simple rule."
Where's the hardware?
"As for the metaphysical interface of the mind, in the age of software we are past finding the mind-body problem mysterious. It is pure form - and forms exist off in the platonic ether - that both thoughts and arranged charge on glorified sand are each brought into correspondance with, and thereby with each other. There are no 0s or 1s in a computer, programs are not made of matter, they are math-like, etc. The rest of that line of thought is hopeless."
You obviously haven't read much on that idea since there is a lot more to the theory then your gross oversimplification and there has been some interesting recent progress... but oh yeah I forgot, you only read things connected to NKS so you wouldn't know...
Oh yeah one last thing on the ethics point my view of ethics in not based on theory... sorry... so your theory is wrong...
"I am able to say that - you yourself have had essentially nothing to say on the subject. (And hardly showed much familiarity even with the thinker you introduced when bringing it up - it is not like the "mark of an educated mind" comment is buried deep in the Nicomachaen Ethics)"
wow so you know where your own quote came from, good for you... did you think that was lost on me or something...
I am surprised... they must have thought competent for this position but all you are is an NKS cheerleader and a wannabe philosopher who thinks philosophy is about read it all and then being able to quote it, while accusing everyone else of knowing nothing.
As to the newness of my theory.. what did i say... that I haven't and will not present the entirety on this forum... but you read that as thats my whole argument... Go back to english 101...
Take a logic course... re-read philosophy... and then read science and try to read and comprehend more areas then you currently have which is none...
Again if my questions are so useless then you can explain to me how a cell is a universal computer and how its level of complexity is at the same level as a person when it isn't and there are enough mathematical models of it to prove that...
Try again....
you'll get it eventually....
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
Moving on from the silliness, I might with maximum charity make up a similar position and use it to illustrate points about NKS and common misconceptions about it, where they come from etc.
Practical modelers are already convinced they need to use computer programs to model complicated phenomena. But typically have no awareness of theoretical computer science or how the methods they are using actually work, at bottom. Oh they known how to program and they know how to model and their subject matter, not the point. They don't know what happens when the code leaves their hands and the hardware takes over.
What happens is their own elaborate mental conceptions of things as articulated in their code, are munged beyond recognition to make it more tractable for the particular machine they run it on. Nobody has to make new hardware to implement their latest idea about hierarchy or synching or network connectedness or what have you. The same underlying fixed instruction set is quite sufficient, and compliers translate everything into the few simple rules their computer actually "groks". It does the operations it understands enough times in the right order, to get exactly the same behavior or answer your own abstractions would have.
Now, when a modeler says, to model aspect X of my particular complicated phenomenon, I need to put X into my abstractions, that is fine and in no way contrary to NKS. NKS does not pretend that all complex systems have been modeled, but merely that modeling them will be done with computer programs and if they are sufficiently complex will involve irreducible amounts of specific detail, because the real systems depend on their details, etc.
But when someone instead claims that no simple rule can do what their computer program does, then they just show their ignorance of theoretical computer science and how their program actually works here in the real world.
And this is incredibly common. Because reseachers fixate on the techniques they learn. They think those will slice bread and anything that doesn't use them will not. But it is obvious from the fact that fixed instructions suffice to implement them, that somewhere out in the enumeration of programs using only those fixed instructions, each and every one of their specialized programs exists. If you just ran through the possible memory states of your laptop in order, you would at some point hit a Windows installation with Mathematica 5.2 installed, etc. That space is just enourmous.
Too enourmous for blindly raking through possible programs to be of much use, if the systems being sought for are specific enough. But since even quite simple and therefore short ones already do arbitrarily complicated things, we have in fact two directions in which we might proceed, not one. We can look at some empirical system and mimic its components programmatically - and that is modeling and NKS - or we are run through classes of programs seeing what they do, looking for cases close to some phenomena we see empirically. And that is search and is also NKS.
As for the specific bugaboo about hierarchy, partly in comes from previous ideas in complexity theory, specifically the investigation of fractals. The same appears prominently in NKS - just look at rule 90 and you will see how easily simple rules create intricate hierarchial forms. Whenever the cause of something does not depend on a scale, it may operate at multiple scales, and similar patterns may therefore be seen on those multiple scales.
Generalizing, power laws are one of the simplest possible mathematical forms data can take, right after lines and exponentials etc. This was a fruitful idea, mostly due to Mandlebrot. But it is not the essence of complexity (specifically), because complexity arises without it, and it can give forms that are quite simple.
People reasonably try to get additional mileage out of techniques they learned to deal with such cases. That's fine, and it involves no erroneous claims about what programs can or cannot do.
It is also quite possible for systems to have different simple rules on different levels of analysis. In classic systems theory terms, we simply do not regard them as the same system. A system is a formal abstraction out of a mass of particulars. It attempts to keep the essential generators of some phenomenon, while dropping accidental details. (A fine classic Aristotlean distinction, incidentally).
When the essential features are retained, the system behavior remains as it was. We say that system (or aspect of the behavior) is separable. If a rate of change depends only on a previous quantity, you always get exponentials, e.g. Which sort of thing they occur in does not matter, the form depends only on that relation existing between prior quantity and rate. Obviously, that relation may have physical limits - then the behavior will be true within them but other factors will enter beyond them, etc.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to build nested computer models of some empirical system - or for some technological purpose. I advocate and use them - each level being a simple rule, the whole a program etc. But claims that X cannot be done or that no program exists with such behaviors except when started that way, are unsound, as a matter of known theorems. You might make a search claim about it. You can't make an existence claim.
Anything any program can do, some simple program can do. That is the basis of the "new" in a new kind of science. It is the reason to expect arbitrarily intricate behavior may arise from simple components - which we clearly see it does, incidentally, metaphysical longing for gaps notwithstanding. It is the reason to expect computer models to be the way to move science forward. It is the reason formal experiment can will and does aid irreducible empirical work. It is the reason it is a new science with plenty to do dealing with intricate real cases that depend on details, instead of being over already with everything already done.
Science cannot be dictated to, and sound philosophers do not try. It goes where the truth can be found, and doesn't care a straw whose ox is or is not gored in the process. Whether of prior method or fashion, or of philosophical conviction or desired conclusion. Even sound theologians fully understand this, do not comically pretend to know things beforehand that no one knows, and recognize truth as the highest criterion. "X can't be because I don't like the consequences" is a whim in fiction, not seeking the truth, and nobody can possibly take it seriously.
Posted by: Simon85
What theologians have you read? My basis of ethics is not based on any human standard... can you figure it out now?
I never said philosophy dictates science in anything I have said... but apparently you are able to read things I don't say, and don't think...
What exactly are you trying to do? I hope your not trying to prove something since if you are it escapes me... but I am also only paying as much attention as is needed or dictated by the level of argument.... the low level of argument... well what do we expect from someone who debates science and doesn't know science...
Can't you figure out the game yet....?
I don't take NKS as a work of science, its pure work of ego... its based on interesting idea which doesn't hold up... those who believe are hopelessly mired in the dearth of evidence for it in the natural world...
Any simulation that has been performed on NKS terms take for example AI, current AI based on traditional models is a 100 times better...
Current math explains far more then what NKS can explain, and with some adjustment that will stay the case...
I have no misconceptions about NKS, the questions are designed to get you to answer them with in the framework of NKS... and apparently you don't know how to answer them since you seem to ignore them...
Well either way congats you failed the test, you failed to answer any questions I asked you failed to present much outside of NKS, by saying oh I am just making up stuff to knock it down, which is incorrect and I have told you why but as with any ideologist like yourself reason logic and anything else can be twisted and shaped to fit your world view... my friend of moral relativity and ethical unknowns, master of philosophical trivial...
"Anything any program can do, some simple program can do." you don't know that and can't prove it... oh wait you don't need proof, just accept it and everything will be fine...
enough of this drivel, I expected more out of the forum moderator, but hey.. you can't have everything...
And could you please stop slobbering all over this forum its physically painful...
-Simon
Posted by: Jason Cawley
Just disrupting at this point, nothing actually said, doesn't understand the concept of universal, at no point remotely specific enough to actually be making any sort of claim (and no, I can't figure it out yet, there are about a thousand varieties not one), pretends to be asking question when there isn't a single question in sight, etc.
You've been asked repeatedly to leave, invited to finish your supposed book, invited to make your own forum, etc. What's the point? This is over.
Posted by: Simon85
Read the posts then a question would be insight...
I have asked numerous times for you to demonstrate to me in specific how would CA and NKS generate so much as a living cell?
No general examples or broad statements I want a specific pointed answer...
If CA is software which you seem to say that it is where is the hardware that makes this run in the universe?
Clear enough...
And by the way I don't need an invitation from to finish my book... thanks though...
Posted by: Jason Cawley
Asked and answered, repeatedly.
With any system above the threshold of universality, to model it explicitly you have to mimic each detail of its construction empirically in a computer program, dropping any aspects you find are accidental or can be profitably omitted to simplify the problem etc. Every such involved model as a piece of computer code can be compiled to simpler rules etc. You just never understood the universality point nor the empirical detail point. Your not getting it is not my not answering.
As for a rule for the universe, which is of course speculative and is not a CA, the universe is the hardware obviously, and its laws or update rules are the laws of nature and are what we mean by a rule for the universe in the first place. Which is no different from any other law of nature in relation to the universe etc. This is entry level philosophy of science.
Posted by: John Bentham
I have not read the whole book at all (I have just been reading it online.) I have read some really interesting reviews. I am not a really smart science guy with a theory of everything that is better than everyone else’s. I do have some questions about this debate and the nature of it.
"What theologians have you read? My basis of ethics is not based on any human standard... can you figure it out now?"
I don’ know what you are talking about. Are you stating that you have access to some non human standard of ethics? You repeatedly state that Jason gives no proof and only uses self-referential arguments to bolster his case. Here you don’t give any argument at all that I can follow. You just ask if it can be figured out. No I can not figure it out. You have a theory that you refuse to put forward for fear that it would be stolen so you don’t seem willing to actually make your case. While your idea could be the most amazing idea ever which can be proven beyond any reasonable doubt for all of humanity forever period, period, period, it seems illogical to enter into a debate while you are unwilling to truly make your case and expect others to be swayed by your ideas.
"What exactly are you trying to do? I hope your not trying to prove something since if you are it escapes me... but I am also only paying as much attention as is needed or dictated by the level of argument.... the low level of argument... well what do we expect from someone who debates science and doesn't know science..."
Jason clearly stated that he was not trying to prove anything and that NKS was a possible model of how things might work which he has reason to believe might be a good model. You may come up with a better model and then we could see how well it lined up with the universe as we observe it.
"Can't you figure out the game yet....?"
Is this a hoax? It occurred to me that you may be pulling our legs and that you are not as unusual as you are making yourself out to be, but that you are having some fun with the rest of us by seeing how riled up you can get the folks at NKS.
"I don't take NKS as a work of science, its pure work of ego... its based on interesting idea which doesn't hold up... those who believe are hopelessly mired in the dearth of evidence for it in the natural world..."
What do you base that statement on?
"Any simulation that has been performed on NKS terms take for example AI, current AI based on traditional models is a 100 times better..."
How do you quantify that “100 times better?”
"Current math explains far more then what NKS can explain, and with some adjustment that will stay the case..."
What do you base that statement on?
"I have no misconceptions about NKS, the questions are designed to get you to answer them with in the framework of NKS... and apparently you don't know how to answer them since you seem to ignore them..."
"Well either way congats you failed the test, you failed to answer any questions I asked you failed to present much outside of NKS, by saying oh I am just making up stuff to knock it down, which is incorrect and I have told you why but as with any ideologist like yourself reason logic and anything else can be twisted and shaped to fit your world view... my friend of moral relativity and ethical unknowns, master of philosophical trivial..."
Simon you often suggest that Jason’s English comprehension is deficient or that he would do well to well to attend some remedial English classes and yet you do not seem to have done us the courtesy of running either a spell check or grammar check on your posts. These types of insults make it hard to tell if you have genuine concerns about this idea or if you are just trying to get people bent out of shape.
"Anything any program can do, some simple program can do." you don't know that and can't prove it... oh wait you don't need proof, just accept it and everything will be fine... "
I don’t think that is what Jason is saying. Are you intentionally misinterpreting what he is saying or did you not understand it or have I missed the point?
"enough of this drivel, I expected more out of the forum moderator, but hey.. you can't have everything...
And could you please stop slobbering all over this forum its physically painful..."
This seem like such an emotional response from you I found Jason’s comments also often emotionally charged although I thought he did a slightly better job of keeping it to the issues, but I thought that both of you were unnecessarily disrespectful of one another. These types of statements are the type of stuff that reflect no real desire for truth but rather an emotional attachment to a particular point of view even in the face of evidence that contradicts that view. I don’t see how you can reduce yourself to this type of insult and still claim that you are really interested in the “truth” or being able to “prove” some idea. Simon it would seem logical and polite to wait until you are ready to fully present your case in a coherent way before expecting anyone to agree with you. I think that you raise some very valid points about complexity. Can it arise from such simple sets of instructions? What are the moral spiritual and philosophical implications of this theory? Where do these instructions come from? I believe that Jason did address some of this. I gather that he does not address it to your satisfaction but you do not say why. It would seem more logical to me if you were to refute the statements that Jason does make instead of simply repeating the same question over and over. What in either of your opinions do the insults you have sent towards one another contribute to our collective understanding of the implications of these ideas?
Posted by: Tony Smith
It really needed sombody fresh to the topic to call Simon out over this. As an oldie I've just watched in amazement as Jason did a more than admirable job of responding charitably to somebody with a totally closed mind and irrelevant agenda.
Maybe now we can get back to quibbling over details of the NKS program, accepting that they are what this forum exists for. Just how useful and accurate NKS is might take generations to determine, but at least there are enough positive hints to more than justify continuing effort.
But how to deal with those entrapped in received wisdom may not be a problem than NKS can shed much direct light on, although I'm still optimistic that general principles which emerge from the study of complex systems can have something useful to say about matters more philosophical.
Posted by: Jason Cawley
It is not worth trying to respond to someone no longer present. As I think the length of this pretty fruitless thread shows, I can be pretty patient - but my patience is not unending. The previous poster is no longer welcome here. If someone more reasonable can find anything of merit in anything he raised (other than what I've already allowed and discussed, I myself cannot) and wants to carry on discussion of it, that's fine, though I suggest a new thread and a narrower focus on whatever point you think that is. My first sentence in this thread still applies, in my opinion.
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