From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sun Mar 16 2003 - 15:02:48 GMT
Hi Andy, all,
"I am rather like the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past
the rocks in its path."
Here is another excerpt from the review of the Wolfram book by Ray Kurzweil
that is relevant to the MOQ:
"There is a philosophical perspective to Wolfram's treatise that
I do find powerful. My own philosophy is that of a "patternist,"
which one might consider appropriate for a pattern recognition scientist.
In my view, the fundamental reality in the world is not stuff, but pattern
s.
If I ask the question, 'Who am I?' I could conclude that, perhaps
I am this stuff here, i.e., the ordered and chaotic collection of molecule s
that comprise my body and brain .
However, the specific set of particle s that comprise my body and brain are
completely different from the atoms and molecule s than
comprised me only a short while (on the order of weeks) ago. We
know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks.
Even those that persist longer (e.g., neuron s) nonetheless change
their component molecule s in a matter of weeks.
So I am a completely different set of stuff than I was a month
ago. All that persists is the pattern of organization of that stuff.
The pattern changes also, but slowly and in a continuum from my
past self. From this perspective I am rather like the pattern that
water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path.
The actual molecule s (of water) change every millisecond, but the pattern
persists for hours or even years.
It is pattern s (e.g., people, ideas) that persist, and in my view
constitute the foundation of what fundamentally exists. The view
of the Universe as a cellular automaton provides the same perspective,
i.e., that reality ultimately is a pattern of information . The information
is not embedded as properties of some other substrate (as in the
case of conventional computer memory ) but rather information is
the ultimate reality . What we perceive as matter and energy are
simply abstraction s, i.e., properties of pattern s. As a further
motivation for this perspective, it is useful to point out that,
based on my research , the vast majority of processes underlying human
intelligence are based on the recognition of pattern s. "
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