February 6, 2006 - 17:53
Projects:
This might seem quiet apparent to others, but after class I was thinking about Langton's ant and how it relates to CA and emergence. It seems to me that Langton's ant just clarifies and supports our understanding of emergence. As I see it, Langton's ant is a CA inside of a CA. Does this seem like this to anyone else? This mainly became clearer with the examples on NetLogo, but I have not tried it out myself yet. I feel that Langton's Ant example, and the many more we will come up with using NetLogo will help support Wolfram's theory that everything is computable. I do not necessarily believe in what he says, but what is leading me to believe otherwise now? I have been trying to think of things that do not fall under being computable, but maybe they are computable, but not in the way we think. That is not too clear, but what I mean to say is maybe we cannot compute the answer to the halting problem, but that does not mean it is not computable at this time. I absolutely this whole time have been thinking that everything is interconnected and builds on each other, that it was maybe started with just simple rules and a simple state and evolved to be something bigger. It is possible; I do not see anything proving against it...so where do we go from here? It just seems there is not a right answer and we all see it somewhat differently, but for purposes of this class, I can see the relationship that Wolfram is trying to make, but that does not mean i believe in it. I really think that Wolfram has opened something up for the rest of us, and that is something to question and really think about so that we can find an answer that is less wrong. I do see that Wolfram does not account for free will and other things, but then how can we make it clearer and incorporate free will and the other things he does not account for into Emergence? I honestly think that everything is connected and makes up a bigger picture, I am still though unsure of how we got where we are. Is it because we just evolved from some little agent and rules, or just from something like CA?
There are so many discussions about diseases, being intelligent, SES, etc and if it is genetic and/or environmental. There are discussions about psychological disorders and if they truly exist. Many ask if these disorders are due to the environment or genetics or something else. These are just some things that I truly think show emergence in a bigger picture rather than looking at the simple, small things to the complex. I like think about Emergence from the complex to the simple. I know it is difficult and probably impossible to start with something complex and narrow it down to something simple. But what I find interesting is just trying to fathom all the different possible ways something simple became something complex.
Comments
LA as CA
Submitted by Kathy Maffei on February 7, 2006 - 14:56 Permalink
free will again
Submitted by Kathy Maffei on February 7, 2006 - 15:27 Permalink
I do see that Wolfram does not account for free will and other things, but then how can we make it clearer and incorporate free will and the other things he does not account for into Emergence?
I still think that adding some randomness in the rules has some huge potential to account for free will along with other unprovable things.Untestability and other thoughts
Submitted by AngadSingh on February 8, 2006 - 10:46 Permalink