[HN Gopher] Multicomputation: A Fourth Paradigm for Theoretical ...
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Multicomputation: A Fourth Paradigm for Theoretical Science (2021)
Author : RafelMri
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-04-09 07:07 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (writings.stephenwolfram.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (writings.stephenwolfram.com)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I was at a Santa Fe Institute public lecture last month by Sara
| I. Walker. It was about _a lot_ of things (nominally, how might
| we recognize life if it is chemically quite different from
| anything we have on earth). However, somewhere near the middle of
| the talk, she put up this slide:
|
| https://youtu.be/FnKTwPDsDiU?t=1894
|
| later she put up this slide;
|
| https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2649
|
| The connection to Wolfram is made more explicit in the second
| one, where she lists several ideas as possible "What's Nexts" for
| theoretical science: Assembly Theory / Causal
| Set Theory / Constructor Theory / Wolfram Physics Project /
| Complexity Science
|
| I find this exciting in a way that transcends Wolfram's endless
| self-promotion. It's clear that there is a wave of thinking going
| on right now that is trying to come up with new fundamental
| concepts about how the universe has managed to build complex
| systems. It's possible that none of the ideas are right, and it's
| even possible that they all are. Either way, physics working
| harder to try to explain complexity and temporality (including
| evolution of chemistry and higher level systems) just seems
| incredibly exciting, and I hope that maybe there will be some
| breakthroughs before I shuffle off this mortal coil.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| D'oh. The first link was supposed to be:
|
| https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2648
|
| though Olafur is pretty cool too, and the second link was
| supposed to be:
|
| https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=3608
| soraki_soladead wrote:
| The talk on assembly theory was really interesting. Thanks for
| sharing. I'd be surprised if the idea of causal constraints or
| quantifying complexity in chemistry was novel. Is it the
| context of life search that makes novel? Does you know what
| else it might be called?
|
| (Aside: I think the first link was miscopied?)
| [deleted]
| d--b wrote:
| So Wolfram defines 4 major breakthroughs in the history og
| humanity's ability to model nature. The first two are geometry
| (antiquity) and differential equations (newton). And the other
| two have been discovered by the man himself!
| throwawaygo wrote:
| I feel like we're adding graph meta-modeling on top of Tony Hoare
| CSP. If these graphs were not dags we would be heading into
| cybernetics. I want to feel like this is novel but can't escape
| the idea that the boundaries of a multi-way model are arbitrary.
|
| It also seems like a natural next step for automata modeling.
|
| Maybe I am missing the breakthrough.
| [deleted]
| skim_milk wrote:
| I'm far too stupid to understand everything but I keep getting
| reminded of the Chronon Field Theory when reading. They seem to
| agree on how gravity forms, that are no masses or particles, only
| observable "events" and "event density" (for gravity).
| Observation as interpreting reality, our ability to only measure
| collapsed wave functions, interpretation of time frames, etc. A
| "universe" or "system" that is observing itself. Both systems
| lend themselves well towards understanding the universe and life
| as just a complex but computable automata. I guess I shouldn't be
| surprised when different metaphysical systems overlap but there
| feels like a lot of overlap here.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AEEwYcWUuc
| t_mann wrote:
| There's no denying that Stephen Wolfram is a genius and has
| probably attained a deeper understanding of nature by age 14 than
| I will achieve in my lifetime. But still, I can't help but cringe
| when reading sentences like this:
|
| "Basically starting in the early 1980s, there was a burst of
| progress based on a new idea (of which, yes, I seem to have
| ultimately been the primary initiator): the idea of using
| [cellular automata] as the basis for models of things in nature
| and elsewhere." (narrator voice: cellular automata were invented
| and applied to model things in nature and elsewhere before
| Wolfram was born).
| loudouncodes wrote:
| This alsp pissed me off. He is totally ignoring Benoit Mandel
| brot's work in the 1950's and John Conways work in the 1970's.
| He sounds like a petulent child who takes himself too seriously
| and expects others do the same. It distracts from an otherwise
| interesting classification paradigm.
|
| I do not see much difference between his 4th paradigm and a
| breadth-first search through an np (nondeterministic
| polynomial) problem. I'd love to know what other mathemeticians
| that work on dynamical systems (Dr Krieger, anyone?) think of
| his work...
| t_mann wrote:
| I may have actually given him a bit too much credit initially
| (I'll admit, I didn't read the full article). Even if I
| acknowledge that Wolfram probably knows a lot more graduate-
| level math than me, sentences like these raise some eyebrows:
|
| "There are regions of 'metamathematical space' (the slices of
| proof space) that might have higher 'densities of proofs'
| corresponding to more interconnected fields of mathematics -
| or more 'metamathematical energy'. And as part of the generic
| behavior of multicomputational systems we can expect an
| analog of Einstein's equations, and we can expect that 'proof
| geodesics' will be 'gravitationally attracted' to regions of
| higher 'metamathematical energy'. (...) In the presence of
| large amounts of 'metamathematical energy' there'll
| effectively be a metamathematical black hole formed. And
| where there's a 'singularity in metamathematical space'
| there'll be a whole collection of proof paths that just end--
| effectively corresponding to a decidable area of
| mathematics."
|
| Is this for real? Is this a legit mathematical theory that
| leads to new mathematical discoveries? Are these conjectures
| that he expects to be rigorously provable? Or are these just
| ramblings of someone who left the game a long time ago and
| who thinks that he still 'has it'?
| FrozenVoid wrote:
| It seems to make sense, if you view that as current math
| theories treated as "windows" into a space of possible
| mathematics, like e.g. quantum string theory possibility
| space(10^500) vs "accepted string theories"
| https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-
| arts/science/p...
| tinco wrote:
| Not to give any credence to Wolfram's theories, I'm wholly
| unqualified, but why not? Mathematics extends all the way
| into algorithms and complexity. We have already established
| that for example machine learning could lead to new
| mathematical discoveries, and machine learning is easily
| described by math.
|
| Of course whether such a space is in any way practically
| computable or of a scale that could even reasonably
| comprehendable to a human being or even to some machine is
| an unanswered question.
| t_mann wrote:
| Sure, in principle it's interesting, and I can fathom
| that statements like these could in principle be
| provable. This 'graphical' perspective could lead to
| interesting insights eg in proof theory (I actually
| wouldn't be surprised if things like that had already
| been done).
|
| My point was rather: making any statement in modern
| mathematics is hard. I was wondering how serious he is
| about formally establishing any insights about his ideas,
| eg a connection between proof spaces and Einstein's
| equations (presumably general relativity).
| eximius wrote:
| Theorising about a structure behind proofs made of an
| alphabet isnt new - its part of theorems like Godels
| Incompleteness, etc.
|
| Actually exploring or evaluating objects in this space has
| always (and continues to be) intractable due to the high
| complexity and computational power required.
| andrewpolidori wrote:
| I think a fairer reading of the paragraph isn't that he's
| claiming to have initiated work in cellular automata as a
| whole but that he's claiming to have been the initiator of
| the "burst of productivity" in the 80s.
| whodunnit wrote:
| The big ego stuff and always needing to feed it with claiming
| credit for everything reminds me a lot of narcissistic
| personality disorder, which is caused by childhood emotional
| abuse, so I think we should just humor his ego and recognize
| it for what it is, that is be kind and understand what causes
| that sort of thing, while not letting it distract us from the
| value of the research he's doing. Intellectually Wolfram is
| clearly a very intelligent person; emotionally he is
| underdeveloped.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| It's interesting to try to find inventions by him that aren't
| presaged
| Qem wrote:
| After that time when he tried to deny credit for a discovery to
| an employee, using a NDA, now I always wonder when he claims
| something if it is truly his work or just misappropriation of
| other people's ideas. He aims to be a new Newton or Einstein,
| but may end just as another L'Hopital.
| hadjian wrote:
| I thought Newton was the ass of math history (e.g. Hooke and
| Leibnitz feuds). What did L'Hopital do?
| Qem wrote:
| He was a rich nobleman that tried to pass some discoveries
| of one of the Bernoulli brothers as his own, in exchange
| for cold, hard cash. He was partially successful. Despite
| this fact becoming broadly known in the math world, a
| important rule in calculus is still known by his name. See
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27H%C3%B4pital%27s_rule
| and https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a_
| 2011/...
| codeflo wrote:
| I guess the name stuck because naming _even more_ things
| after the Bernoullis would just be too confusing.
| codeflo wrote:
| "List of things named after members of the Bernoulli
| family": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_n
| amed_after_m...
| azeirah wrote:
| He just kinda sounds like how Edison is represented nowadays.
| Claims to be popular inventor but is just a bright guy with
| thousands of equally bright employees doing the other 99% of
| the innovations.
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