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This all went down in the late 90s. Basically, Wolfram had been employing a lot of people to continue the basic research he did in the early 1980s on cellular a
by jamesblonde 10y ago
This all went down in the late 90s. Basically, Wolfram had been employing a lot of people to continue the basic research he did in the early 1980s on cellular automata. Wolfram's claim-to-fame is that he discovered 4 classes of cellular automata (random, stable, periodic, complex). I claim he took these straight off nobel-prize winner Ilya Prigogine who identified these 4 classes for far-from-equilibrium thermodynamic systems - see Nicolis paper (figure 1): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC388547/pdf/pnas00060-0162.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC388547/pdf/pnas.... (Nicolis was Prigogine's student).
Anyway, Wolfram thought he was on to something really big (meaning-of-life type big). But he also founded Mathematica, thought - "hey, i'll just get rich first". And like Jeff Hawkins who put his Palm Pilot money into his first love of brain research, Wolfram funded basic research on cellular automata. And Wolfram wanted the scientific credit for that basic research - hence the NDAs. Now artists (like Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst) have been doing this successfully for years - taking credit for their employees art. Wolfram reckoned he could do the same. But Mr Cook thought otherwise. Fair play to Cook, I say. It's a very interesting exercise, because there's nothing Wolfram can do now. Cook was the one who made the discovery and he told us so. Wolfram wants to undo that, but with the Internet, he can't.
Regarding the actual discovery. It's significance is that it shows us how very simple rules and interactions can produce something complex and regular (a universal Turing machine) upon which intelligent systems can be built. Given that the brain is almost certainly not a universal Turing machine, I believe that Wolfram over-estimated the long-term historical significance of the discovery.
- CaliforniaKarl 10y agoAwesome, thank you very much for the description!
- unlikelymordant 10y agoHow is the brain not a universal turing machine? Is there a task that turing machines can do that brains can't? It has been shown that rnns are turing complete [1] so it is certainly believable that brains are [1] http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/220907/meaning-of-and-proof-of-rnn-can-approximate-any-algorithm http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/220907/meaning-of-a...
- roywiggins 10y agoYou can calculate rule 110 by pen and paper, so at least the brain-pen-paper system is Turing complete. However, the brain is not a Turing machine, probably. There aren't discrete states, no transition table, no tape, etc. We probably don't store information remotely like a Turing machine does (with arbitrary symbols). There's a remote chance that the opposite is true, and there are functions humans can calculate that Turing machines can't.
- Immortalin 10y agoLambda calculus aren't turing machines either but they are turing complete
- jamesblonde 10y agoI won't go into details on why the brain isn't a UTC - this is useful: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-brain-a-turing-machine https://www.quora.com/Is-the-brain-a-turing-machine
- barrkel 10y agoCare to mention which reply you think is insightful? I didn't find much of interest at the end of that link; some say yes, some say no, and some answer the inverse but related question (can a Turing machine emulate the brain - because obviously people can laboriously emulate Turing machines). If you think the brain can compute something a Turing machine can't, it would be interesting to link to something that justifies the position (I personally think a TM is enough).
- jamesblonde 10y agoI don't think a brain can compute something a TM can compute. The brain, however, is not a simple universal turing machine in the sense that it doesn't have a finite set of instructions and an infinite tape-band. I don't subscribe to the Penrose school of thought on this matter.
- eps 10y agoInteresting. How does Wolfram's NKS book fit into all of this?
- jacquesm 10y agoIt's interesting but not earthshaking level interesting and does not warrant the expanded title of 'A New Kind of Science'.
- eps 10y agoNo, I actually read the book, so I know what it is. What I meant was how the book fits into the timeline and the authorship? On one hand it's largely about rule 110, which was Cook's finding, but in the other Wolfram said he was working on it for 10 years.
- jamesblonde 10y agoWhen Wolfram said he was working on it for >10 years, he meant that his minions (with signed NDAs that prevented even acknowledging the existence of a proof for rule 110) had been working on the research for >10 years. He did, however, work on writing the book. I read it, too. Didn't enjoy it at all.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- allenz 10y agoThe significance is also that cellular automata might be a good model of physical reality. The idea is probably more interesting than practical though.