Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits http://justagwailo.com/node/6275/atom/feed 2007-08-15T09:49:33-07:00 The Lifebox, The Seashell, and the Soul by Rudy Rucker: Chapter 1: Computation Everywhere http://justagwailo.com/filter/2006/08/16/lifebox-chapter-1 2006-08-16T00:49:27-07:00 2007-08-15T09:49:33-07:00 Richard In the first chapter of The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy, Rudy Rucker, science fiction writer and computer scientist sets out his argument, which, handily, is the title of the chapter, "Computation Everywhere". The chapter is part organizing—in which he lays out the structure of the rest of the book—and part introductory, defining computations as “a process that obeys finitely describable rules” and classifies them at least two ways, on feasibility and unpredictable lines, as well as how the computations go about. Along the first, computaions can be:

  • feasible and predictable
  • fessible and unpredictable
  • unfeasible and predictable
  • unfeasible and unpredictable

and the second, they can be classified “four main behaviors for arbitrary computations that are left running for a period of time”:

  1. enter a constant state
  2. generate a repetitive or nested pattern
  3. produce messy, random-looking crud
  4. produce gnarly, interacting, nonrepeating patterns

He then goes on to define terms such as the Principle of Computational Equivalence, the Principle of Computational Unpredictability and universal computations, moving on to analytical machines. The word "machine" in Turing Machine tricked my non-theoretical non-computer science into thinking it was necessarily a physical thing rather than a mathematical or algorithmic concept. Emulation—and that any computer can, theoretically, emulate another—is a concept I have a fairly easy time grasping, if not so much later concepts such as cellular automaton (this time the word cellular tricking my brain into thinking about biological—i.e. existing in physical form—cells), and I'd probably have to see the cellular automaton rules play out in an animation, if maybe sped up.
In subsequent chapters Rucker applies computations to biology and physics, the latter I did well enough in high school to be able to follow along and the former I have about zero knowledge of. The book is so far well-written enough that I can plod through and jump back or pause to research more detailed explanations, though, so plod on I will.

]]> In the first chapter of The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life, and How to Be Happy, Rudy Rucker, science fiction writer and computer scientist sets out his argument, which, handily, is the title of the chapter, "Computation Everywhere". The chapter is part organizing—in which he lays out the structure of the rest of the book—and part introductory, defining computations as “a process that obeys finitely describable rules” and classifies them at least two ways, on feasibility and unpredictable lines, as well as how the computations go about. Along the first, computaions can be:

  • feasible and predictable
  • fessible and unpredictable
  • unfeasible and predictable
  • unfeasible and unpredictable

and the second, they can be classified “four main behaviors for arbitrary computations that are left running for a period of time”:

  1. enter a constant state
  2. generate a repetitive or nested pattern
  3. produce messy, random-looking crud
  4. produce gnarly, interacting, nonrepeating patterns

He then goes on to define terms such as the Principle of Computational Equivalence, the Principle of Computational Unpredictability and universal computations, moving on to analytical machines. The word "machine" in Turing Machine tricked my non-theoretical non-computer science into thinking it was necessarily a physical thing rather than a mathematical or algorithmic concept. Emulation—and that any computer can, theoretically, emulate another—is a concept I have a fairly easy time grasping, if not so much later concepts such as cellular automaton (this time the word cellular tricking my brain into thinking about biological—i.e. existing in physical form—cells), and I'd probably have to see the cellular automaton rules play out in an animation, if maybe sped up.

In subsequent chapters Rucker applies computations to biology and physics, the latter I did well enough in high school to be able to follow along and the former I have about zero knowledge of. The book is so far well-written enough that I can plod through and jump back or pause to research more detailed explanations, though, so plod on I will.

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