[CA as a modeling language, but not quite new] - A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

A New Kind of Science: The NKS Forum

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CA as a modeling language, but not quite new

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Posted by: Shih-Kung Lai

I think the major contribution of NKS is to provide a modeling language other than numerical and logical systems we are familiar with. It is well known that numerical and logical systems have their limits in modeling complex phenomena, but what we have not had discovered before NKS is alternative ways to emulate natural phenomena. With increasing computing power, we finally become to uncover alternative modeling languages to understand how the world works. But in my view, the CA language used in NKS is not new, because similar binary systems have been discovered in I Ching, The Book of Change, thousands of years ago in China. The only difference is that with computers, we know the implications and power of the binary systems in a rigorous way, not just by speculations.


Posted by: Jason Cawley

Sounds a little bit like saying, since Aristotle knew about logic he already had pentium chips. Sure, it is interesting that people noticed quite a while ago that you could think in binary. And the I Ching seems to have influenced Leibniz in his formulation of modern binary - though that again needed development from Boule to Shannon to turn into the general technical method it has become. There is a note about this on page 893.

That distinction can capture arbitrary structure was noticed early and often ("diaresis" in Plato, logic in Aristotle, etc). It is something considerably beyond this to notice universal computation, which is about specific structures and operations sufficient to encode any finite algorithm. Computation is more than representation. Also, it makes some difference whether what a general encoding scheme is thrown at is a real process in nature, or numerology and the like. Which just amounts to saying any general enough scheme can be used to say rather silly things as well as useful ones.


Posted by: Ray Donald Pratt

Back when I was 20 young years old, I had the privilege of meeting and briefly studying under Sifu Cheuk Fung, one of two living masters of a virtually unknown "internal" martial art called Southern Shaolin Mok Ga Gung Fu. The art is an amalgam of the Southern Shaolin Animal Styles superimposed on the Tai Chi Chaun frame with the internal side of the art perfected by Tibetan monks.

Sifu Cheuk Fung can break bones with a mere touch as a martial artist, and he can set broken bones without a cast as a doctor. No, he cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I personally tried to bend his relaxed arm with all my weight and strength -- and I was not weak. As I tried a second time, he told me to reach over and feel his arm with one hand as I was trying to bend his arm with all my weight and strength.

Soft, sallow, baby fat -- not the slightest muscular tension whatsoever. Experiencing is believing.

Sifu Cheuk Fung, with his limited English eloquence, but obvious passion, once berated a popular, artsy translation of the I Ching as "extremely irresponsible." Make no mistake about it -- Sifu Cheuk Fung is a master of an internal martial art with skills that border on the miraculous, and he believes that the I Ching is a serious repository of at least part of the knowledge behind his skill.

I do not have his skill, so I would not presume to judge whether the I Ching actually does or does not contain knowledge that could lead to or aid such skill -- no more than I would judge whether Calculus can solve a certain problem when I have no knowledge of Calculus.

Please be careful in judgement.

My personal perspective as a Christian is that Taoism is an internal science regarding the creation that misses the point of the Creator -- but that doesn't make the science any less useful in regard to the creation.

Very Respectfully,
Ray Donald Pratt




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