Thanks for the comments Robert. I see your point, and I agree that we may be able to control to some extent the dynamics of a complex system. For some reason, though, I am much more attracted by the spontaneous dynamics that these systems may exhibit, that seems to outperform us in terms of creativity.

T

Dear Tommaso,

Marvellous essay! It's a literary work; it's amusing; it expounds the complexity viewpoint very well. I think this is a top essay.

However I don't buy the complexity viewpoint - I will post more about this later.

Regards,

Lorraine

    Dear Tommaso,

    Re "I don't buy the complexity viewpoint":

    As you know, in my essay I claim that there are at least 3 invalid assumptions underlying the ideas of physics (and that these perverse and unenlightened ideas about the nature of reality underlie the attitudes that are destroying our planet).

    Well, another invalid assumption of Wolfram, Chaitin, and physics in general, is that numbers just exist, no explanations necessary. This is a Platonic viewpoint.

    But I think that there is no Platonic realm - this universe is all there is. So given that restriction, what are the numbers that are found when fundamental reality is measured; what does this mean about the nature of reality? I think that there is necessarily a physical reality behind numbers (as I try to explain in my 2013 essay): I contend that numbers are (what I call) hidden information category self-relationships. I think the information category/information relationship way of looking at things is a better pointer to the nature of reality than e.g. the cellular automata viewpoint.

    I contend that information is indistinguishable from/identical to physical reality; and that information is subjective experience. So, at the foundations of reality, information is subjective experience of e.g. information categories like mass and charge. I also contend that the physical outcomes of "free will" can only be represented as the creation of new (usually temporary) "rules", where law-of-nature rules are information category relationships. I contend that the views of Wolfram and Chaitin etc. imply that the universe is a very dull place, where nothing truly new ever happens: the "truly new" being new "rules".

    Best wishes,

    Lorraine

    11 days later

    Hi Tommaso,

    Very nice essay. I ran your Mathematica code and it looks like a fine random number generator, could you perhaps explain what is going on step by step? It is intriguing.

    - Hector

    • [deleted]

    • Post #66

    Hector,

    I'm glad that you ran the code. You are the first... It looks indeed like a random number generator. More specifically, it creates a random permutation of the first n integers on-the-fly. At each step the code takes a pair (pi(n), pos), where pi(n) is an n-tuple representing the current permutation of the first n integers, and pos is an index between 1 and n. The step creates a new pair (pi`(n+1), pos`), where pi`(n+1) is a permutation of the first (n+1) integers obtained from pi(n) by inserting integer (n+1) at position pos, and pos` is the number found at position pos of tuple pi(n). The computation is started from tuple pi(2) = (1, 2) and pos = 2.

    You can trace the evolution of variable pos (like you do when tracing the dynamics of a Turing Machine head on the tape), or look at the whole permutation pi(n) (seen as a function from range (1..n) to itself), and you get the `foggy` picture of white noise, or deterministic chaos.

    I found this minimal deterministic code while experimenting with algorithms for building causal sets by using permutations - an idea originally suggested by Alex Lamb, alternative to the stochastic, `sprinkling` technique used by the Causal Set Programme people (Rideout, Sorkin, ...).