3 ms·

They already have, as I said in response to your other version of the same question :)

nil-sec 6y ago
I’ve read through your GR part. Just to counter all the negativity here, congrats for pulling this off! I felt your papers do a much better job in explaining what’s actually the idea. Probably would be better to directly link to them here on HN. I’m a bit rusty but everything you write seems very reasonable to me. One thing I was a bit nervous about, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you seem to somewhat artificially put in “causal invariance” by restricting all hyper graphs you consider to those that have this property. This isn’t obvious from the rule itself and it seems like it could just go wrong at one point deep into the time evolution. Are you worried about that? Edit: Additionally the model seems very flexible. To the point that I’m unsure whether it’s surprising to be able to recover GR and other properties. I’m out of my depth here but given that string theory seems to face a similar problem of model selection have you looked at equivalences between those or does this not make sense in your eyes?
igravious 6y ago
"Perhaps the single most[0] significant idea conveyed within Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science, and the initial intellectual seedling from which the contents of the book subsequently grow, is the abstract empirical discovery that the “computational universe” - that is, the space of all possible programs - is far richer, more diverse and more vibrant than one might reasonably expect. The fact that such intricate and complex behavior can be exhibited by computational rules as apparently elementary as the Rule 30 and Rule 110 cellular automata, which are so straightforward to represent that they can easily be discovered by systematic enumeration, is profoundly counterintuitive to many people.[1]" "However, once one has truly absorbed and internalized this realization, it leads to an exceedingly tantalizing possibility: that perhaps, lying somewhere out there in the computational universe, is the rule for our physical universe[2]. If an entity as remarkable as Rule 30 could be found just by an exhaustive search,then perhaps so too can a theory of fundamental physics.[3] The idea that there could exist some elementary computational rule[4] that successfully reproduces the entirety of the physical universe at first seems somewhat absurd, although there does not appear to be any fundamental reason (neither in physics, nor mathematics,nor philosophy) to presume that such a rule could not exist. Moreover, if there is even a remote possibility that such a rule could exist, then it’s slightly embarrassing for us not to be looking for it. The objective of the Wolfram Physics Project is to enact this search.[5]" [0] There is in fact only one idea in that book, and this is that idea. But is this an original idea? When computer scientists and mathematicians come up with novel results in programming language theory or type theory (or whatever) what is to stop them claiming that they are empirically exploring a "computational universe"? [1] Probably, but not to programmers, or the computationally literate. [2] An extraordinary leap within the context of the introduction. Though note, neither is this an original idea, that the universe may be "digital" is not an idea original to Wolfram and it redates his magnum opus by I don't know how many years. Note there are actual physics projects that seek to kick the tyres this hypothesis. Have you got that so far? A recasting in lofty terms of an unoriginal idea followed by a a giant leap to another unoriginal idea which serves only to motivate the project. [3] So you say, but this is a giant non-sequitur. [4] Why just one rule? And the rule hardly runs itself. What does it run on? Great you have a generalised term-rewriting system (how completely un-novel). "What rewrites the terms?* How is this not the first question you ask yourself? [5] Hey, why not just say: “You know that "it from bit" idea? We have a hunch that term rewriting hypergraphs is the way to go. These are our explorations. We've encountered stuff that echoes contemporary physics.” Why not write the intro like that? Not grandiose enough for you? === Any sufficiently worthy "it from bit" project must answer the following questions. (1) Given that we know that any sufficiently powerful computing system can emulate any another what motivates your choosing this particular computational system and model? (2) Demonstrate convincing physics (not toy models) (3) Make testable predictions – this is not something for "down the line", this is what theories of anything must do. No predictions, no dice, no matter how nice. (4) Is it software all the way down? If so, how? If not, what is the hardware and what does that imply? (5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? Why is it always encoded in the formal systems you happen to play around with (geometry for Weinstein, term-rewriting systems / cellular automata for Wolfram). === I think the wider scientific community needs to call time on savants like Weinstein and Wolfram.
- philosopher1234 6y ago
  I think the way you nitpicked his phrasing was mean and unconstructive.
- AgentME 6y ago
  >[4] Why just one rule? Is a specific combination of rules not itself a rule? A lot of descriptions of Conway's Game of Life describe it as multiple rules, and other places refer to its whole setup as a "rule". Rule 30 is sometimes called a "rule set". I don't think there's a strict difference between a rule set and a rule, though the simpler rule(set) the better seems to be easy to agree on. ... >(5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? A theory with fewer free parameters is better than one with more. I think this extends to the complexity of the theory too: a theory with more rules (rule A applies to small stuff, rule B applies to big stuff, rule AB-patch applies to mediumish stuff) is worse than as a theory that explains the same stuff with fewer rules (a single rule X that naturally has A-behavior with small stuff and B-behavior with big stuff) in the same way a theory with more free parameters is worse than a theory with similar predictions and fewer free parameters. It's Occam's Razor. Complex theories can have lots of different variants that each match the existing evidence but make different predictions in untested scenarios. Simpler theories have fewer variants that successfully match the existing evidence and tend to be more useful for making predictions, indicating that they match reality better. >And the rule hardly runs itself. What does it run on? Great you have a generalised term-rewriting system (how completely un-novel). "What rewrites the terms?* How is this not the first question you ask yourself? Is that not an obstacle for any theory? Tons of theories are meant to model what we see, without presuming some underlying mechanism. Newton came up with a theory of gravitation that modeled how objects tend to pull each other in without any idea of why nature chose for that to happen. Even if the idea that not explaining what executes the rule of reality is a problem, then a simpler theory with fewer rules is obviously better because there's fewer unexplained rules. >[5] Hey, why not just say: “You know that "it from bit" idea? We have a hunch that term rewriting hypergraphs is the way to go. These are our explorations. We've encountered stuff that echoes contemporary physics.” Why not write the intro like that? Not grandiose enough for you? Personally, I found their intro to have a lot more background detail and motivation explained. Is your primary objection really that they were too grand for a few paragraphs? >(1) Given that we know that any sufficiently powerful computing system can emulate any another what motivates your choosing this particular computational system and model? Any system capable of having relativity and QM-like effects emerge out of it as described is interesting enough to study, even if it did end up having defects that meant it couldn't be a good model of reality overall. I feel like you're treating this as if he's asking everyone to commit themselves fully to this model instead of to explore it. >(5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? Why is it always encoded in the formal systems you happen to play around with (geometry for Weinstein, term-rewriting systems / cellular automata for Wolfram). Presumably they chose those systems to play around to begin with because they believe those systems were promising.

I’ve read through your GR part. Just to counter all the negativity here, congrats for pulling this off! I felt your papers do a much better job in explaining what’s actually the idea. Probably would be better to directly link to them here on HN. I’m a bit rusty but everything you write seems very reasonable to me. One thing I was a bit nervous about, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you seem to somewhat artificially put in “causal invariance” by restricting all hyper graphs you consider to those that have this property. This isn’t obvious from the rule itself and it seems like it could just go wrong at one point deep into the time evolution. Are you worried about that? Edit: Additionally the model seems very flexible. To the point that I’m unsure whether it’s surprising to be able to recover GR and other properties. I’m out of my depth here but given that string theory seems to face a similar problem of model selection have you looked at equivalences between those or does this not make sense in your eyes?

igravious 6y ago

"Perhaps the single most[0] significant idea conveyed within Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science, and the initial intellectual seedling from which the contents of the book subsequently grow, is the abstract empirical discovery that the “computational universe” - that is, the space of all possible programs - is far richer, more diverse and more vibrant than one might reasonably expect. The fact that such intricate and complex behavior can be exhibited by computational rules as apparently elementary as the Rule 30 and Rule 110 cellular automata, which are so straightforward to represent that they can easily be discovered by systematic enumeration, is profoundly counterintuitive to many people.[1]" "However, once one has truly absorbed and internalized this realization, it leads to an exceedingly tantalizing possibility: that perhaps, lying somewhere out there in the computational universe, is the rule for our physical universe[2]. If an entity as remarkable as Rule 30 could be found just by an exhaustive search,then perhaps so too can a theory of fundamental physics.[3] The idea that there could exist some elementary computational rule[4] that successfully reproduces the entirety of the physical universe at first seems somewhat absurd, although there does not appear to be any fundamental reason (neither in physics, nor mathematics,nor philosophy) to presume that such a rule could not exist. Moreover, if there is even a remote possibility that such a rule could exist, then it’s slightly embarrassing for us not to be looking for it. The objective of the Wolfram Physics Project is to enact this search.[5]" [0] There is in fact only one idea in that book, and this is that idea. But is this an original idea? When computer scientists and mathematicians come up with novel results in programming language theory or type theory (or whatever) what is to stop them claiming that they are empirically exploring a "computational universe"? [1] Probably, but not to programmers, or the computationally literate. [2] An extraordinary leap within the context of the introduction. Though note, neither is this an original idea, that the universe may be "digital" is not an idea original to Wolfram and it redates his magnum opus by I don't know how many years. Note there are actual physics projects that seek to kick the tyres this hypothesis. Have you got that so far? A recasting in lofty terms of an unoriginal idea followed by a a giant leap to another unoriginal idea which serves only to motivate the project. [3] So you say, but this is a giant non-sequitur. [4] Why just one rule? And the rule hardly runs itself. What does it run on? Great you have a generalised term-rewriting system (how completely un-novel). "What rewrites the terms?* How is this not the first question you ask yourself? [5] Hey, why not just say: “You know that "it from bit" idea? We have a hunch that term rewriting hypergraphs is the way to go. These are our explorations. We've encountered stuff that echoes contemporary physics.” Why not write the intro like that? Not grandiose enough for you? === Any sufficiently worthy "it from bit" project must answer the following questions. (1) Given that we know that any sufficiently powerful computing system can emulate any another what motivates your choosing this particular computational system and model? (2) Demonstrate convincing physics (not toy models) (3) Make testable predictions – this is not something for "down the line", this is what theories of anything must do. No predictions, no dice, no matter how nice. (4) Is it software all the way down? If so, how? If not, what is the hardware and what does that imply? (5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? Why is it always encoded in the formal systems you happen to play around with (geometry for Weinstein, term-rewriting systems / cellular automata for Wolfram). === I think the wider scientific community needs to call time on savants like Weinstein and Wolfram.

philosopher1234 6y ago
I think the way you nitpicked his phrasing was mean and unconstructive.
AgentME 6y ago
>[4] Why just one rule? Is a specific combination of rules not itself a rule? A lot of descriptions of Conway's Game of Life describe it as multiple rules, and other places refer to its whole setup as a "rule". Rule 30 is sometimes called a "rule set". I don't think there's a strict difference between a rule set and a rule, though the simpler rule(set) the better seems to be easy to agree on. ... >(5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? A theory with fewer free parameters is better than one with more. I think this extends to the complexity of the theory too: a theory with more rules (rule A applies to small stuff, rule B applies to big stuff, rule AB-patch applies to mediumish stuff) is worse than as a theory that explains the same stuff with fewer rules (a single rule X that naturally has A-behavior with small stuff and B-behavior with big stuff) in the same way a theory with more free parameters is worse than a theory with similar predictions and fewer free parameters. It's Occam's Razor. Complex theories can have lots of different variants that each match the existing evidence but make different predictions in untested scenarios. Simpler theories have fewer variants that successfully match the existing evidence and tend to be more useful for making predictions, indicating that they match reality better. >And the rule hardly runs itself. What does it run on? Great you have a generalised term-rewriting system (how completely un-novel). "What rewrites the terms?* How is this not the first question you ask yourself? Is that not an obstacle for any theory? Tons of theories are meant to model what we see, without presuming some underlying mechanism. Newton came up with a theory of gravitation that modeled how objects tend to pull each other in without any idea of why nature chose for that to happen. Even if the idea that not explaining what executes the rule of reality is a problem, then a simpler theory with fewer rules is obviously better because there's fewer unexplained rules. >[5] Hey, why not just say: “You know that "it from bit" idea? We have a hunch that term rewriting hypergraphs is the way to go. These are our explorations. We've encountered stuff that echoes contemporary physics.” Why not write the intro like that? Not grandiose enough for you? Personally, I found their intro to have a lot more background detail and motivation explained. Is your primary objection really that they were too grand for a few paragraphs? >(1) Given that we know that any sufficiently powerful computing system can emulate any another what motivates your choosing this particular computational system and model? Any system capable of having relativity and QM-like effects emerge out of it as described is interesting enough to study, even if it did end up having defects that meant it couldn't be a good model of reality overall. I feel like you're treating this as if he's asking everyone to commit themselves fully to this model instead of to explore it. >(5) I would direct this last point at all TOE-heads like Wolfram and Weinstein and whoever. Why does it have to be simple? Why does it have to be elegant? Why is it always encoded in the formal systems you happen to play around with (geometry for Weinstein, term-rewriting systems / cellular automata for Wolfram). Presumably they chose those systems to play around to begin with because they believe those systems were promising.