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Rule 30 seems to result in a repeating pattern that transfers information along a diagonal with a slope other than 1, though the repeating pattern composing this line is based on lines of slope 1. Here is a picture of it from Wolfram's book.

The ideas behind emergence are very important for computer game design, because we try and simulate real phenomena based on simpler rules, so in a sense we are trying to reverse-engineer emergent patterns. For example, in my current project I am trying to simulate (in real time) fairly complicated physical objects such as bodies, ropes, weapons, or cloth. My current solution is to deconstruct the object into its component points and constraints, and then apply Isaac Newton's laws of motion. While this is a much simpler approach than that used in most games, it is yielding very promising results, and may turn out to actually be faster and more flexible than other more popular approaches to physics simulation.

I just read through wikipedia's entry on emergence, and wanted to recommend it. There's a section explaining emergence in physics - phenomenon such as color and temperature are emergent properties of lower-level conditions that don't display those qualities but create them on a larger scale. Fascinating stuff. Anyway, it comes close to but doesn't actually say something I was thinking as I read through this section: that emergence might explain why Einstein's Grand Unification Theory has been so elusive. Emergence in physical laws would explain why quantum physics governs particles, why electromagnetic & weak forces govern atoms (composed of particles), and why mechanical laws govern larger bodies composed of those atoms.

So I just wrote this long entry, and accidentally deleted it. I'll try to replicate it as much as I can! I was thinking about the role of computers in emergent phenomena, and how we've been looking at them. For instance, in the game of life or go or sim games, we use computers to simulate phenomena based on predetermined rules. But these are just simulations. The computer is doing the work, but beyond that, it really isn't doing anything. Even when we were looking at cellular automata, we followed a ruleset, key word being "ruleset". A specific set of rules that determine how the pattern is going to emerge. But again, they computer doesn't really do anything except the background work. It speeds the process up.

On Doug's advice, I've used vnc in past courses to get a remote desktop to work from home on my Windows machine. I'd had problems with changes in security, but last night I got it running just fine. Of course, there's a bit of delay, but it's quite nice. Lucid Life is almost as impressive as in class, and python CAs pop up nicely. I'm using a cable internet connection at home, so I'm not sure what a dial-up would look like... In case someone else would like to try it, I figured to document it here. I’ll describe it in detail for anyone not already familiar with these programs. I'm using PuTTy (a free, non-installed executable) to create a secure shell to one of the lab computers. The shell needs to create a tunnel through which the vnc client will connect, since BMC security blocks vncserver requests otherwise.

First, if you were interested in the computer-generated ringtones Wolfram is selling, check out Wolfram Tones: An Experiment in a New Kind of Music (I suppose he's reinventing music, as well). You can listen to them on the website, share them with friends, and download them to your cell phone -- the last for a fee of about $2.

I'd like to thank Peter for figuring this out. For anyone on a Windows machine who is trying to SSH into the cluster and wants to use X11 port forwarding, you'll need to install Xming. It's a port for the X Window System which can run on Windows machines and it doesn't depend on Cygwin. After you install Xming and run it, a black 'X' should appear in your taskbar tray. Open up PuTTY, navigate to Connection>SSH>X11 on the left and check 'Enable X11 Forwarding'. And voila! Now the pretty CA pictures will appear in a pop-up window when you execute your code.

Just testing this drupal stuff...

I have no interest in defending Wolfram as either a person or an academic scholar against the kinds of criticisms expressed (appropriately I think) in class today. I do though want to explain and justify my characterization of his work as "digital determinism" and as a unique/important "coherent and comprehensive explanation of everything". And hence as, whatever its shortcomings, a body of exploration/thinking that it is important to understand and pay attention to. I earlier argued that "computer models are not capable of nor aimed at determining what is 'real'" but instead are intended "to establish that some pattern/phenomenon that is presumed to depend on complexity/planning/a directive element can be produced without that. To show what might be, rather than what is." Wolfram's work needs to be appreciated in these terms. It is an assertion that one might in principle account for all known phenomena (literally ALL, from physics through biology, psychology, sociology, history, and, yes, art) in terms of very simple things (locations having only two possible states) interacting in very simple ways (locally and deterministically in digital time steps).

The subject of protein folding came up in one of my classes and although I had studied protein folding before, this time I began to wonder if protein folding is also an emergent system. Basically, protein folding is how a particular amino acid sequence folds itself into a conformation that is lowest in energy. The process it goes through can be described to be like a funnel, where the sequence tries to fold itself in different conformations while eliminating high energy conformations until it gets to the native state (the conformation lowest in energy). The idea that amino acids are simple units that when arranged in a particular sequence, always fold in a similar manner led me to believe that protein folding could be an emergent system. There is no architect or conductor in protein folding as the native state of the protein depends primarily upon how the particular amino acids in the protein associate with themselves.