Hooft

May 1, 2004 3:48 AM

Essence of Everything? According to Zuse, cellular automata (PDF). He's not alone.
posted by Gyan (9 comments total)

Pardon the title.

Sorta discussed in previous Wolfram threads. Mainly the last link.
posted by Gyan at 4:00 AM on May 1, 2004

It's not the program that's so disturbing for most people, it's those darn system upgrades.
posted by Stoatfarm at 10:20 AM on May 1, 2004

Cool, never knew about Zuse. I always thought Wolfram had just followed a beautiful mathematical illusion with little relevance to reality. But the idea of everything being connected is showing up on all levels from globalism to environmentalism to wholistic medicine .. every action has a cascade of reactions which is what cellular automata is. In a way it answers both the reductionist western science thinking and the eastern mystic wholistic thinking.
posted by stbalbach at 2:33 PM on May 1, 2004

I think cellular automata is compelling (to me) simply because it's a model which strips down most baggage to explain change in terms of very few fundamental operators (identity, quality, quantity). Of course, the essential question of why anything exists or changes cannot be answered, but in terms of human experience and cognition, automata seems the most intuitive framework for mechanics of change. This is not to say that CA is indeed the real mechanical schema, just that it is fundamentally intuitive.
posted by Gyan at 2:54 PM on May 1, 2004

Uh, one question: should I take the blue pill or the red pill?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:40 PM on May 1, 2004

It's automated. There's no choice to be made.
posted by Gyan at 6:06 PM on May 1, 2004

Contrary to a widely spread misunderstanding, quantum physics, quantum computation, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Bell's inequality do not provide any physical evidence against Zuse's thesis of a CA-computed universe!

Godel?
posted by namespan at 12:14 AM on May 2, 2004

How so?
posted by Gyan at 12:38 AM on May 2, 2004

dunno about a computer but it could be discrete, altho...

"According to Leibniz, the integers are human, the discrete is at the level of Man. But the continuum transcends Man and brings us closer to God." -chaitin

so like, 't hooft with a twist! (perhaps making it 'qubital'!? :)
posted by kliuless at 7:29 PM on May 2, 2004