21–30 of 95 posts
In modern times, the Y combinator has been made famous by the Y Combinator startup accelerator, named that way by Paul Graham (who had been a longtime enthusiast of functional programming and the LISP programming language—and had written an early web store using it) because (as he once told me) “nobody understands the Y combinator”. (Needless to say, Y Combinator is all about avoiding having companies go to fixed points…)
A real shame that Wolfram gives credence to "handwriting analysis" pseudoscience in what is otherwise an interesting piece. > “The writing style is entirely different. Personality-wise, the writer of sample B has a quicker, more intuitive thinking style than the one of sample A.” How can anybody of Wolfram's intelligence unquestioningly accept this nonsense?
If you're in London and in any way interested in computing history, you owe it to yourself to visit Bletchley Park. It's a fantastic day visit from London. (About an hour away or so via the railway, as I remember it.) There's a direct train from Paddington, iirc. UK people please fill in.
A real shame that Wolfram gives credence to "handwriting analysis" pseudoscience in what is otherwise an interesting piece. > “The writing style is entirely different. Personality-wise, the writer of sample B has a quicker, more intuitive thinking style than the one of sample A.” How can anybody of Wolfram's intelligence unquestioningly accept this nonsense?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno, I think it's pretty easy to judge the value of not easily testable wacky conjectures. I don't think much of Penrose's idea that brains are quantum gravitic computers either, and that is vastly more close to being testable, and Penrose's achievements and track record in actual science are also vastly more impressive. Putting that aside; computer guys seem to think "computability" is important in physics. I do…
The conjecture that our universe is isomorphic to a CA is absolutely testable. When we find a CA that behaves just like the universe, we'll know it's true. If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. Computable physics would be extremely useful. Even with coarse approximations you can only integrate the Schrödinger equation among hundreds of particles. So you…
This is wrong. You would have to additionally prove that the other thing is the only alternative.
Also, CA is not testable in the sense that the theory of relativity is testable. The latter makes measurable predictions that can be satisfied, the former does not. I can imagine any model - unicorns and fairies included - and say that is behaves like the universe. The only way to falsify my claim is to empirically contradict one of my claims. NKS does not put forth such claims. Not the kind you would build a new CERN for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dunno, I think it's pretty easy to judge the value of not easily testable wacky conjectures. I don't think much of Penrose's idea that brains are quantum gravitic computers either, and that is vastly more close to being testable, and Penrose's achievements and track record in actual science are also vastly more impressive. Putting that aside; computer guys seem to think "computability" is important in physics. I do…
The conjecture that our universe is isomorphic to a CA is absolutely testable. When we find a CA that behaves just like the universe, we'll know it's true. If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. Computable physics would be extremely useful. Even with coarse approximations you can only integrate the Schrödinger equation among hundreds of particles. So you…
>"If we find a completely different way of computing [the universe]"
We can only compute models of the universe. If a model apparently never contradicts our observations of the universe, then we lazily identify the universe with the model within casual contexts, but we don't actually take that as Absolute Truth. Thus, within appropriate contexts, we might speak as if the "forces" of Newton are actual platonic things, as if the arrows in a freshman physics textbook actually exist and could poke you in the eye. But they don't, they are merely a model.
So, suppose we discover tomorrow a new equation which seems to match all observations, and which we can formally prove transcends CAs. Well, we'll never know whether or not tomorrow we'll find an instance where that new equation breaks down, and has to be replaced by an updated equation which IS computable by CAs. Thus, your supposed "test" is not a test at all.
>Computable physics would be extremely useful. Even with coarse approximations you can only integrate the Schrödinger equation among hundreds of particles
You seem to be confusing "computable" with "efficiently computable" or something. A function can be computable but still be prohibitively expensive to compute.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The conjecture that our universe is isomorphic to a CA is absolutely testable. When we find a CA that behaves just like the universe, we'll know it's true. If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. Computable physics would be extremely useful. Even with coarse approximations you can only integrate the Schrödinger equation among hundreds of particles. So you…
> If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. This is wrong. You would have to additionally prove that the other thing is the only alternative. Also, CA is not testable in the sense that the theory of relativity is testable. The latter makes measurable predictions that can be satisfied, the former does not. I can imagine any model - unicorns and fairies inclu…
A real shame that Wolfram gives credence to "handwriting analysis" pseudoscience in what is otherwise an interesting piece. > “The writing style is entirely different. Personality-wise, the writer of sample B has a quicker, more intuitive thinking style than the one of sample A.” How can anybody of Wolfram's intelligence unquestioningly accept this nonsense?
A real shame that Wolfram gives credence to "handwriting analysis" pseudoscience in what is otherwise an interesting piece. > “The writing style is entirely different. Personality-wise, the writer of sample B has a quicker, more intuitive thinking style than the one of sample A.” How can anybody of Wolfram's intelligence unquestioningly accept this nonsense?
Ignore the personality assessment element. Wolfram sought to identify whose handwriting the note was, so he asked a "professional handwriting examiner" that he happened to know. The quote you extracted was her relaying her opinion that the note was not written by Turing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The conjecture that our universe is isomorphic to a CA is absolutely testable. When we find a CA that behaves just like the universe, we'll know it's true. If we find a completely different way of computing it that doesn't map to a CA, we'll know it's false. Computable physics would be extremely useful. Even with coarse approximations you can only integrate the Schrödinger equation among hundreds of particles. So you…
That's not how falsifiability works. >"If we find a completely different way of computing [the universe]" We can only compute models of the universe. If a model apparently never contradicts our observations of the universe, then we lazily identify the universe with the model within casual contexts, but we don't actually take that as Absolute Truth. Thus, within appropriate contexts, we might speak as if the "forces"…
Current physics models (integrating the Schrödinger equation) aren't computable even in principle, because they involve infinite continuous vector spaces. So a CA model is a theoretical breakthrough because it's computable, even if it's not efficient.
Numerically integrating the Schrödinger equation scales exponentially in the number of quantum states, while the CAs proposed in NKS only scale with the volume of space, so there is some size of system where it'll beat numerical integration.