Posted by Christopher (208.143.232.66) on June 10, 2002 at 12:04:14:
In Reply to: A New Kind of Science posted by Scott Ellis on June 10, 2002 at 00:24:01:
Scott,
Just shootin from the hip here, didn't read the links you provided yet but wanted to make a quick couple of comments...
I would have to disagree with your statement about life being a true perpetual motion machine. If you don't put some effort into it, life dies. It takes hard work and enery to keep life going, and even more hard work and energy to bring order to life. It may take the form of something natural, like evolution or a food chain, or something as purposeful like washing the dishes or taking out the trash, but in every case there needs to be some energy expended to keep life ordered and thriving.
Without that input of energy there would be a buildup of waste, failed species, toxins, disorder, decay, and death. Life uses up resources. During that process do we produce more resources than we use? Only then would life be a perpetual motion machine.
I think that using math and simulations to model / predict / decribe life is definitely cool and may certainly lead to new discoveries, but I just can't help thinking that there is some random element in life that cannot ever be simulated. Not really. Have you ever watched a movie with CG effects and thought, "wow, cool, that looked pretty real, I could tell it wasn't real but it certainly looked good." That's what I'm getting at. No matter how close a simulation gets there's some undefinable aspect that sets life apart from a simulation.
As I said, I haven't had the chance to read your links yet. Possibly Wolfram addresses some of the things I just mentioned. I'll take a look.
Thanks!
: Hello All,
: Wanted to make sure you all know about this. It is very exciting indeed!
: Stephen Wolfram is the man behind Mathematica, the ubiquitous math software you are probably familiar with. Do you know those computer "life simulators?" Where you apply an algorithmic rule to an initial condition and it shows how the organisms evolve? Wolfram has taken that idea and shown that it is actually the correct way to model nature. Therefore, mathematics is just an artifice and has led Science down a dead end. Algorithms, not mathematics, express the true "language" of the universe.
: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25621.html
: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/29/books-werthheim.shtml
: http://www.msnbc.com/news/761372.asp?cp1=1
: http://www.wolframscience.com
: http://www.stephenwolfram.com/
: If he is right, this is the beginning of a true revolution in Science.
: It is interesting to note that Life is a clear violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy. In life and evolution there is a natural increase in order, which is a decrease in entropy. Life is a perpetuating system... a true perpetual motion machine.
: If the basic rules that govern life and evolution (algorithms) also govern the physical world, then it becomes conceivable that a physical/mechanical system could be made to operate in a perpetually repeating cycle.
: Scott