From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2003 - 14:49:32 GMT
Hi Andy:
> Is anyone else out there wading through Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of
> Science?"
I'm not sure if I want to take it on with its 1200 pages, but I'd be
interested in the Cliff's notes. I read a couple reviews and listened to
the Talk of the Nation Science Friday interview on the NPR website.
>If there is I would love to discuss what you think the
> relationship is, if any, between quality and complexity.
Despite the increasing complexity as his programs run, they reach a leveling
off after which no more complexity emerges. The pictures never evolve into
plants or animals, for example. A possible MOQ interpretation would be that
cellular automata can't respond to DQ.
This is an interesting review
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0464.html?printable=1
Here is an excerpt on complexity:
"Wolfram effectively sidesteps the issue of degrees of complexity .
There is no debate that a degenerate pattern such as a chessboard
has no effective complexity . Wolfram also acknowledges that mere
randomness does not represent complexity either, because pure randomness
also becomes predictable in its pure lack of predictability. It
is true that the interesting features of a Class 4 automata are
neither repeating nor pure randomness, so I would agree that they
are more complex than the results produced by other classes of Automata.
However , there is nonetheless a distinct limit to the complexity produced
by these Class 4 automata. The many images of Class 4 automata
in the book all have a similar look to them, and although they are
non-repeating, they are interesting (and intelligent) only to a
degree. Moreover, they do not continue to evolve into anything more
complex, nor do they develop new types of features. One could run
these automata for trillions or even trillions of trillions of iterations,
and the image would remain at the same limited level of complexity .
They do not evolve into, say, insect s, or humans, or Chopin preludes,
or anything else that we might consider of a higher order of complexity than
the streaks and intermingling triangles that we see in these
images.
Complexity is a continuum. In the past, I've used the word "order"
as a synonym for complexity , which I have attempted to define as
"information that fits a purpose." 6A completely predictable process has
zero order . A high level of information alone does not necessarily imply a
high level of order either. A phone book has a lot of information , but the
level of order of that information is quite low. A random sequence is
essentially pure information (since it is not predictable),
but has no order . The output of Class 4 automata does
possess a certain level of order , and they do survive like
other persisting pattern s. But the pattern represented by a human being has
a far higher level of order or complexity .Human beings fulfill a highly
demanding purpose in that they survive in a challenging
ecological niche. Human beings represent an extremely
intricate and elaborate hierarchy of other pattern s. Wolfram
regards any pattern that combines some recognizable features
and unpredictable element s to be effectively equivalent to one another,
but he does not show how a Class 4 automaton can ever increase its
complexity , let alone to become a pattern as complex as a human being.
There is a missing link here in how one gets from the interesting,
but ultimately routine pattern s of a cellular automaton to the complexity
of persisting structure s that demonstrate higher levels of intelligence ."
Again, evolution requires something else beyond such deterministic
algorithms. The missing link may be DQ.
Regards,
Steve
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