6 ms·

Multicomputation: A Fourth Paradigm for Theoretical Science (2021)

54 points by RafelMri 5y ago

d--b 5y ago
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!
t_mann 5y ago
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).
- Qem 5y ago
  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'Hôpital.
  - hadjian 5y ago
    I thought Newton was the ass of math history (e.g. Hooke and Leibnitz feuds). What did L‘Hôpital do?
    - Qem 5y ago
      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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27H%C3%B4pital%27s_rule and https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a_2011/exhibits/bernoulli/index.html https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a_2011/...
      - codeflo 5y ago
        I guess the name stuck because naming even more things after the Bernoullis would just be too confusing.
        codeflo 5y ago
        “List of things named after members of the Bernoulli family”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_members_of_the_Bernoulli_family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_m...
      - hadjian 5y ago
        Thanks for the history lesson. Yes, I know the rule from high school. Newton however did a much better job in making his name live forever. And they all succeeded in erasing their questionable behavior from lectures. Money can buy a lot.
  - azeirah 5y ago
    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.
- loudouncodes 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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'?
    - tinco 5y ago
      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.
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  It's interesting to try to find inventions by him that aren't presaged
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
skim_milk 5y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AEEwYcWUuc
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
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 https://youtu.be/FnKTwPDsDiU?t=1894 later she put up this slide; https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2649 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.
- soraki_soladead 5y ago
  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?)
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  D'oh. The first link was supposed to be: https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2648 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 https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=3608
throwawaygo 5y ago
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 5y ago
[deleted]

54 points by RafelMri 5y ago

d--b 5y ago

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!

t_mann 5y ago

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).

Qem 5y ago
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'Hôpital.
- hadjian 5y ago
  I thought Newton was the ass of math history (e.g. Hooke and Leibnitz feuds). What did L‘Hôpital do?
  - Qem 5y ago
    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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27H%C3%B4pital%27s_rule and https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a_2011/exhibits/bernoulli/index.html https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/teaching/math1a_2011/...
    - codeflo 5y ago
      I guess the name stuck because naming even more things after the Bernoullis would just be too confusing.
      - codeflo 5y ago
        “List of things named after members of the Bernoulli family”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_members_of_the_Bernoulli_family https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_m...
    - hadjian 5y ago
      Thanks for the history lesson. Yes, I know the rule from high school. Newton however did a much better job in making his name live forever. And they all succeeded in erasing their questionable behavior from lectures. Money can buy a lot.
- azeirah 5y ago
  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.
loudouncodes 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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'?
  - tinco 5y ago
    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.
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
It's interesting to try to find inventions by him that aren't presaged

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

skim_milk 5y ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AEEwYcWUuc

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

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 https://youtu.be/FnKTwPDsDiU?t=1894 later she put up this slide; https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2649 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.

soraki_soladead 5y ago
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?)
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
D'oh. The first link was supposed to be: https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=2648 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 https://youtu.be/vWqVA0s5K3U?t=3608

throwawaygo 5y ago

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 5y ago

[deleted]