Dr Stephen Wolfram interviewed by Matt Gray

The genius polymath Stephen Wolfram discusses cellular automata, The Wolfram Physics Project, Biology, Unification of Physics. An utter genius, and an utter delight to talk to, could listen to him all day. What a treat.

Some useful Wolfram-related resources:

#philosophy #science #physics #math

[zenadam]

Feels I’d have to watch it more times than I have time to learn the different person named level of thought. I was busy comparing suggested concepts as I perceive, compare to which I can believe. So much feels it could be right, ideas to ponder certainly, and to share as possibility.
Just when I’d mostly grasped, or felt I had, his next point came along. Therefore on first and maybe only viewing, I feel I’ve felt what being said over I’ve heard. But then, that’s how I partake of all such things. Truly wonderful!

[ArlindoPhilosophicalArtist]

Fantastic! This talk is making me try to imagine, in the context of cellular automata, how order can arise from complex systems and behaviour. The rules are simple, the behaviour that evolves is complicated to human minds, and yet we know that order is emergent biological intricacy. This intrigues me! Well done, Matt! Stephen Wolfram is brilliant!

[elikborrill]

I shall have to watch this more than once, me thinks, fascinating.

[TheMemesofDestruction]

Professor Wolfram, crafter of tools for the Computational Generation.

[krzysztofwos]

I think it's worthwhile to point out that not all of us believe in persistence in time. Entire traditions are dedicated to cultivating the skill of seeing that we blink in and out of existence, which, in this framework, can be understood as effectively learning to see consecutive "frames."

Abidhamma, for example, divides each moment of perception into 17 distinct stages. Through practice, one can learn to experience them. It is not a religious dogma. It is a practical skill that requires extraordinary concentration, but as such, it is reproducible. The model itself was derived phenomenologically—through advanced contemplation practitioners comparing their experiences.

So, it's a wild world out there, and learning to be incoherent and to see the ruliad seems to be the goal of Buddhist practice.

Once you reach the end of the path, "the divine eye opens." Buddha says, "Thus, with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings pass on according to their actions."

If you squint your eyes a little, Buddha's description of his phenomenal experience is what I would imagine achieving a larger extent in the ruliad is like: you see karma, the trajectories through the ruliad, which is very much like the path integral.

So, my plan is very simple: see for myself.

[samo]

According to Stephen, energy is the density of updating activity. My simple mind is asking: Is some form of energy expended in an updating activity?

[Dissimulate]

1:04:00 There is enough space in that small span of rulial space for human minds to be distinguished. For us, this is one of the most important features of mind: the vast difference between human minds.

[SandipChitale]

At around 1:00:00 When Stephen talks about "...we have our laws of physics because of the way we are....", he is by definition using the "we" in general terms, not as us individuals. Therefore, idealists should not find a common cause with what Stephen is saying. He is not saying that each individual one of us creates (or sees) the universe and thus gives rise to laws of physics. He is saying our universe as a whole is a slice of Ruleiad. So, in that sense, he is calling of us as we. Which is why it is generally agreed that fundamental laws of physics are the same in our universe - everywhere. They are not different for different persons or different animals, or plants, or rocks, even - depending on the degree of perceptual sensitivities and consciousness. So, in some sense, he is envisioning a coexisting multiverse or whole universes with different laws of physics. Of course, different laws of physics are of specific interest to specific types of organisms. We as humans worry about air pressure, temperature, purity of air we breathe, strength of gravity, and so on. Fish worry about viscosity of water they swim in, clarity of the water, depth at which they swim. Some insects worry about surface tension of water. Sure. But that does not mean that the fundamental laws of physics are different for them in our universe. It is just that different organisms care about and are affected by different higher level physical phenomenon and the higher level (non fundamental) laws that govern them.

I disagree with Stephen about his statement about "if weather has its own mind" - I think as long as the weather is in our universe, it has to follow the same fundamental laws of physics that are same in our slice of the universe. Similarly, any aliens - however far away they are from us in physical space and live on a different planet with very different ambient conditions - if they are in our universe - will discovers the same fundamental laws.

Lastly, with our advanced technologies, we are no longer limited to our senses for what we perceive in the world - and yet none of this changes what the fundamental laws of physics are there in our universe.

Based on this discussion it is not clear if we will be able to explore other slices of Ruleiad in a physical sense. Of course, we may be able to simulate it on our computers or be able to think/imagine about them, similar to the way we can think of 4 dimensional space and a Tesseract.

[huwdavies]

Love the coral and fossils on the shelf!

[SandipChitale]

Richard Dawkins discusses the evolution and how it works in Chapter 3 Accumulating small change of his book Blind Watchmaker. He wrote a computer program similar to Stephen's.

[stewartbrands]

Have you ever noticed how Stephen completely ignores and has ignored Buckminster Fuller's example of the tetrahedron as the most elementary shape that defines the primary inside and outside form with the edges being vectors.
It would seem that anyone ignoring his work that has real observable examples at every order of magnitude is definitely missing a fundamental and is therefore so incomplete as to be wrong.
Computation in the way Wolfram does it to describe reality is two dimensional in the way Euclid is. There is no observable reality or experiencial reality in the two dimensional fantasy however accurate that fantasy may be.

[Sam-wezj]

Wolfram says information is a slippery concept but what about Shannon information? isn't that a robust definition of information?

[huwdavies]

So physical laws are how our minds understand the universe and the universe is an irreducible whole... sounds a bit nihilistic. Certainly phenomenological when considering we are part of the rulead, our observations are dependent on us. Entropy is visible only because our minds aren't complicated enough to simultaneously perceive all particles interacting, leading to entropy and it is, in fact, reversable

[ashbb]

Me lammo es Christoph and if you are saying that neurology creates particles that's some sort of profuckingfound

[Dr.acai.jr.]

CHOMSKY LANGUAGE LOCK found.

Are u an opa134 computer title denier?