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If you want a second opinion, Cosma Shalizi reviews A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram: http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/
This is a classic that everyone should read, utterly destroying a shameless self-promoter gifted with some intelligence and a grasp of jargon.
What exactly is being networked; what is the "stuff" of the network? He describes the network in terms of connections, which in my mind requires a topology, or space within which to exist; yet space does not apparently exist at this level. If there is no space, then what separates the nodes in the network? If no space separates the nodes, what defines the distinct connections between them?
Yes, i'm completely lost.
Maybe a physicist could help me out: the idea here of treating space as a simple discrete network, and particles just being emergent behavior sounds very interesting. But doesn't this violate Bell's Theorem, that no local hidden variables could completely explain quantum mechanics?
I am not a physicist, but Wolfram covers this. "Because there’s a theorem (Bell’s Theorem) that says that unless there’s instantaneous non-local propagation of information, no such “hidden variables” model can reproduce the quantum mechanical results that are observed experimentally." Wolfram's continues by saying he is allowing instantaneous non-local propogation because network nodes have no coordinates; coordinate…
This is getting out of my depth, but isn't that basically what Loop Quantum Gravity proposes?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's written in the first person, and he's describing the findings. How else should he have written it?
Wolfram is known for this. He's clearly a bright fellow but he is not even close to being the only or the first person to work on stuff like cellular automata, computational theories of physics, or complexity. He did not invent everything he claims to have invented and while he does footnote he's definitely not drawing attention to any of the others in the area. It's tragic really. A New Kind of Science is full of br…
I found this incredibly hard to read, due to Wolfram's constant need to self-aggrandize. The entire tone of the piece is, "I discovered this, then I discovered that". In reality, most of his "revelations" were discussed by others long before he arrived on set.
Maybe a physicist could help me out: the idea here of treating space as a simple discrete network, and particles just being emergent behavior sounds very interesting. But doesn't this violate Bell's Theorem, that no local hidden variables could completely explain quantum mechanics?
IANAP either, but wasn't the hidden variable problem resolved by the pilot wave theory?
I found this incredibly hard to read, due to Wolfram's constant need to self-aggrandize. The entire tone of the piece is, "I discovered this, then I discovered that". In reality, most of his "revelations" were discussed by others long before he arrived on set.
Even if he's exclusively describing the evolution of his own thought and linking to his own articles, each discovery and theoretical advancement would better be presented in terms of upstream research that brought it along and predated it, crediting others whenever possible. Science is a network, too!
Things like this always leave me feeling stupid. How is one supposed to wrap their mind around the idea of space emerging from an underlying "network"? What exactly is being networked; what is the "stuff" of the network? He describes the network in terms of connections, which in my mind requires a topology, or space within which to exist; yet space does not apparently exist at this level. If there is no space, then w…