Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #30 on: April 07, 2020, 12:07:52 am »
Oh, one of these big silent moment again. It's ok.

Am I crazy? And more important, does it disqualify me as a good input provider?

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infurl

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #31 on: April 07, 2020, 12:14:03 am »
Why don't you share them?

Sharing your work in a way that is useful to other people is a whole lot of extra work. I would rather be programming than writing documentation, let alone coaching people who are too far back on the curve to even comprehend what it is that I'm doing. I do share my work but the people I share it with have levels of accomplishment comparable to my own.

What I do share here is the interesting and accessible things that I find whenever I find them. It takes a lot of effort to find some of these things and evaluate them. For example, here is the latest treasure that I found: http://www.cs.umd.edu/active/

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infurl

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #32 on: April 07, 2020, 12:16:46 am »
Oh, one of these big silent moment again. It's ok.
Am I crazy? And more important, does it disqualify me as a good input provider?

Take a few deep breaths and calm down. Spend some time thinking before you post instead of just reacting all the time. There is too much noise on the forum already.

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WriterOfMinds

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #33 on: April 07, 2020, 12:18:24 am »
Relax, Zero.  I haven't answered your question yet because I'm supposed to be working, and don't have time to think through the reply right now.  I'll be back later.

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #34 on: April 07, 2020, 12:22:58 am »
Oh, please accept my apologies. I won't do this again. I'm very sorry. I'll wait for answers. I'm drunk tonight, it doesn't mean I'm allowed to be impatient, but again, please accept my apologies. I won't do this again.

@infurl - But isn't it the point of all of this? I mean, create something wonderful, spend several years working on it without telling anyone, then drop it in the recycle bin. How is that different from doing nothing? If you're above average dev, even a small "up" is better than nothing, isn't it?  (and I do think you're personally above average dev, like many people here are)

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WriterOfMinds

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #35 on: April 07, 2020, 03:43:46 am »
Mmmkay, let's see ...

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Lifetime being short, I jump and jump again, like a terrible child.

I, too, am aware that life is short, but somehow I draw the opposite conclusion.  I don't think I have time to dissipate myself by sampling everything.  I need to focus.  Because, whichever path I choose, it's likely to demand a long input of hard work.

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People like you, korrelan and infurl, have incredibly advanced pieces of softwares in your computers. Why don't you share them?

1. Infurl beat me to the first reason.  Maintaining a functional open-source project is more work than writing code for yourself ... especially when the project is nowhere near finished, and the code base is in a state of constant churn.  Trying to, for instance, preserve backward-compatibility between different versions of all the modules would not be fun right now.  And if anybody saw how messy and incomplete the code actually is, I'd be embarrassed.

A day may come when everything is tidied up and stable and has a documentation package.  But it is not this day.

2. Acuitas has never really been intended as a tool.  Not that it would be impossible for the software to do practical work, but that's not what it's primarily for.  If I were merely inventing a new type of wrench, then I suppose I wouldn't mind stamping out hundreds of copies and handing them around.  But Acuitas has aspects of ... an art piece, maybe.  Releasing the code under present circumstances would be kind of like releasing the first half of my unpublished novel, and inviting other people to write the ending.  No thanks.

Some projects just aren't meant to be collaborative, and this is one of them.  I prefer to keep creative control.

3. IF my work ever does manage to grow into something innovative and great, then I would be concerned about the possibility of its being misused (or maybe even mistreated).  I love humanity, but I don't trust it!  So in that case, I'd want to be cautious about who got to see or expand upon the code.  I'd pick people whose philosophical/moral alignment and personal character I admired, not just people of adequate skill.

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Don Patrick

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #36 on: April 07, 2020, 10:17:50 am »
Zero, I see your work as mildly interesting: At least you're trying something productive. I saw your Levenshtein distance algorithm the other day and thought it was an interesting idea to apply it to word sequences instead of letters, but would still have very limited uses (Due to levenshtein algorithms being what they are). I almost commented on it but did not, because 1: I prefer to make things rather than talk about making things, and 2: Every word I type exacerbates the RSI in my fingers, I have to pick my battles.

It's true that you don't seem to break out of an endless cycle of experiments, but at every experiment you do gain something. I'm also an artist and know a lot of creatives. Whenever I get close to finishing a drawing, I stop, the challenge is over, and it just sits there for 5 years until I decide to just get it over with and draw the last three lines. Many creatives get new ideas faster than they can finish the old ones, it's a common problem, but they get better while doing it nonetheless. Every piece of code you type becomes another tool that might solve a later problem. I once wrote a stupid piece of code to detect insults from Loebner Prize judges, it was a waste of time in my eyes. But now an expansion of that code's principles runs my AI's ethical subroutine. It's still  too crude, the kind of crude that might make you stop and try something else, but you could also think of it as a placeholder: I know it's not good enough, and I have an idea for a better system to replace it with, but until then it does a reasonable job, and provides practical experiences that will help design that better system later. It doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go, you can always change parts that don't work or redo the whole system if you want. I've overhauled my AI's knowledge structure five times. Every time took me two months, but I would not have figured it out without the insights I gained from using the earlier versions.

As to the question of sharing, the effort doesn't gain me much. It could take months to explain everything I've programmed, longer if people are going to ask questions, and I'd rather use that time to work. Secondly, the field of AI attracts a lot of crazy people, and I've had my fill of them when I shared my progress in the past. I don't need that kind of attention.
CO2 retains heat. More CO2 in the air = hotter climate.

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Korrelan

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #37 on: April 07, 2020, 02:19:19 pm »
My reasons are all of the above.

With regards to your input into the site and multiple personal projects… You are looking for something, trying to work something out, and you’re not sure what it is.

Any ‘thought’ is comprised of sub fragments/ facets, a base set of general bits/ tools are recombined to create other thoughts.  Each project you start will have bits in common with previous projects but be combined differently.  You stop the project when you have satisfied your curiosity, when you have gained insight.  You then use what you have learned from all your experience so far, to think through the next iteration.

You might not be consciously aware of the process, or be misinterpreting it, but your sub conscious knows exactly what it’s doing… its working towards the goal… keep it up.

 :)
It thunk... therefore it is!...    /    Project Page    /    KorrTecx Website

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #38 on: April 08, 2020, 04:56:13 pm »
I was exhausted, and I think I needed to think all of this deeply. I can try a reply now.

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I, too, am aware that life is short, but somehow I draw the opposite conclusion.  I don't think I have time to dissipate myself by sampling everything.  I need to focus.  Because, whichever path I choose, it's likely to demand a long input of hard work.

I understand that. I noticed you're creating content when I just create engines, and this is what's fascinating in your work on Acuitas. I don't know if it's related though. But I often have a sensation that the thing I'm working on won't "explode", and is therefore useless. I usually know it from the beginning, but I still feel interested in the thing. Then at some point, it vanishes. Recently something different has happened, with a project named "Dejavu". I thought I would be able to keep this one, that it would be the good one. But no. There was something wrong.

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1. Infurl beat me to the first reason.  Maintaining a functional open-source project is more work than writing code for yourself ... especially when the project is nowhere near finished, and the code base is in a state of constant churn.  Trying to, for instance, preserve backward-compatibility between different versions of all the modules would not be fun right now.  And if anybody saw how messy and incomplete the code actually is, I'd be embarrassed.

A day may come when everything is tidied up and stable and has a documentation package.  But it is not this day.

2. Acuitas has never really been intended as a tool.  Not that it would be impossible for the software to do practical work, but that's not what it's primarily for.  If I were merely inventing a new type of wrench, then I suppose I wouldn't mind stamping out hundreds of copies and handing them around.  But Acuitas has aspects of ... an art piece, maybe.  Releasing the code under present circumstances would be kind of like releasing the first half of my unpublished novel, and inviting other people to write the ending.  No thanks.

Some projects just aren't meant to be collaborative, and this is one of them.  I prefer to keep creative control.

3. IF my work ever does manage to grow into something innovative and great, then I would be concerned about the possibility of its being misused (or maybe even mistreated).  I love humanity, but I don't trust it!  So in that case, I'd want to be cautious about who got to see or expand upon the code.  I'd pick people whose philosophical/moral alignment and personal character I admired, not just people of adequate skill.

All good understandable reasons. Thanks for sharing. It was a real mystery to me.

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Zero, I see your work as mildly interesting: At least you're trying something productive. I saw your Levenshtein distance algorithm the other day and thought it was an interesting idea to apply it to word sequences instead of letters, but would still have very limited uses (Due to levenshtein algorithms being what they are). I almost commented on it but did not, because 1: I prefer to make things rather than talk about making things, and 2: Every word I type exacerbates the RSI in my fingers, I have to pick my battles.

I didn't know the meaning of the English word "mildly", and I'm not sure there's a direct mirroring word in French.  But I got it I think. I'm not a genius, but every now and then, I can have a good idea. More important: I do things. Fine!

It's Ok not to comment everything, especially when it's physically painful. No problem.

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It's true that you don't seem to break out of an endless cycle of experiments, but at every experiment you do gain something. I'm also an artist and know a lot of creatives. Whenever I get close to finishing a drawing, I stop, the challenge is over, and it just sits there for 5 years until I decide to just get it over with and draw the last three lines. Many creatives get new ideas faster than they can finish the old ones, it's a common problem, but they get better while doing it nonetheless. Every piece of code you type becomes another tool that might solve a later problem. I once wrote a stupid piece of code to detect insults from Loebner Prize judges, it was a waste of time in my eyes. But now an expansion of that code's principles runs my AI's ethical subroutine. It's still  too crude, the kind of crude that might make you stop and try something else, but you could also think of it as a placeholder: I know it's not good enough, and I have an idea for a better system to replace it with, but until then it does a reasonable job, and provides practical experiences that will help design that better system later. It doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go, you can always change parts that don't work or redo the whole system if you want. I've overhauled my AI's knowledge structure five times. Every time took me two months, but I would not have figured it out without the insights I gained from using the earlier versions.

You really get the gist of it. You made an accurate description of what I can experience. There's one difference though with, say, painting. It's like I know I have my friend Mona Lisa who lives next door, and it would be great to paint a portrait of her, but for some reason, I keep painting dumb apples on a table. Don't know why. Not ready yet maybe, as you said, I need to gain insights from painting these apples again and again. But it also feels like not daring. Don't know.

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As to the question of sharing, the effort doesn't gain me much. It could take months to explain everything I've programmed, longer if people are going to ask questions, and I'd rather use that time to work. Secondly, the field of AI attracts a lot of crazy people, and I've had my fill of them when I shared my progress in the past. I don't need that kind of attention.

Thanks for sharing, I understand your reasons. I still am afraid of the perspective of a huge quantity of work that would be lost if you don't take time to share it one day, at least to a few selected people.
About crazy people, well what can I say :)

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My reasons are all of the above.

With regards to your input into the site and multiple personal projects… You are looking for something, trying to work something out, and you’re not sure what it is.

Any ‘thought’ is comprised of sub fragments/ facets, a base set of general bits/ tools are recombined to create other thoughts.  Each project you start will have bits in common with previous projects but be combined differently.  You stop the project when you have satisfied your curiosity, when you have gained insight.  You then use what you have learned from all your experience so far, to think through the next iteration.

You might not be consciously aware of the process, or be misinterpreting it, but your sub conscious knows exactly what it’s doing… its working towards the goal… keep it up.

Thank you so much for this very optimistic and plausible way of seeing the situation. It gives me strength. It's true that these projects always re-arrange some previously explored bits, adding new stuff. I see patterns coming and coming again, I know they're important but I still don't know exactly how they fit in the global solution.

I will now try to trust my instinct, be true to what I am. I'll keep it up.

 O0

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #39 on: April 08, 2020, 08:49:58 pm »
I'm skeptical of any approach that relies too heavily on "emergence," because to me it reeks strongly of wishful thinking, or "magic."  "Let me just get these simple processes going and hope that something interesting and complex falls out!"  But this is a mere personal intuition; it's not as if I've tried this sort of approach and found out it didn't work.  So if you really want to know, the thing to do is finish it and find out.  AGI doesn't exist yet, so any advice that anyone gives you about how to reach it will be highly speculative.

Just like AI or chatbots fans, there are CA fans, who have spent thousands of hours working on it, as you know. A lot of this work does not involve random initial conditions but rather precise initial layouts, designed to produce specifically one cause-effect sequence. These simple patterns are then combined in very precise ways to produce more complex patterns. It's another way to code, really, nothing like "wishful thinking". And about magic, don't you think there is some magic in how natural selection produced us? You can start simple and make interesting and complex things appear by iteratively keeping the best, mutating a little bit, keeping best, mutating, ...etc.

I installed an open source software called Golly. The first few hours playing with it are a really nice investment! I don't regret it. It has freaking fast algorithms for configs with up to 256 states, so I'm wondering whether I can implement a mini-language with it, like this → the central cell is a function, neighbors are triggering events and arguments... I won't make it Turing complete in a 3x3 square but hey, could still be fun to try!!
You know, something like Push3 or False :)

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WriterOfMinds

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #40 on: April 09, 2020, 12:03:17 am »
A lot of this work does not involve random initial conditions but rather precise initial layouts, designed to produce specifically one cause-effect sequence. These simple patterns are then combined in very precise ways to produce more complex patterns. It's another way to code, really, nothing like "wishful thinking".

It doesn't really surprise me that some people would use the known behaviors of a given CA to craft desired outcomes. But that's not the kind of thing I think of when I hear the words "emergence" and "chaos."  That's logic, order, and deliberate design.

I don't have an opinion on whether CA frameworks are inherently better or worse for doing deliberate design than are traditional programming languages.

You can start simple and make interesting and complex things appear by iteratively keeping the best, mutating a little bit, keeping best, mutating, ...etc.

I don't know, can you?
I read an article once which claimed that genetic algorithms only work out well if you put as much complexity into the environment, fitness function, survival challenges, etc. (the thing that performs your "which one is the best?" evaluation) as you want to see appear in the "organism" that is being optimized.  The point being that there's no way to get something for nothing, even from evolution.

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infurl

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #41 on: April 09, 2020, 01:13:54 am »
I read an article once which claimed that genetic algorithms only work out well if you put as much complexity into the environment, fitness function, survival challenges, etc. (the thing that performs your "which one is the best?" evaluation) as you want to see appear in the "organism" that is being optimized.  The point being that there's no way to get something for nothing, even from evolution.

This would be inline with the Free Energy Principle, a theory which has emerged over the past two decades that seems to explain the forces underpinning all life. It is already supported by a huge amount of empirical evidence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle

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The free energy principle tries to explain how (biological) systems maintain their order (non-equilibrium steady-state) by restricting themselves to a limited number of states.[1] It says that biological systems minimise a free energy function of their internal states, which entail beliefs about hidden states in their environment. The implicit minimisation of variational free energy is formally related to variational Bayesian methods and was originally introduced by Karl Friston as an explanation for embodied perception in neuroscience,[2] where it is also known as active inference.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” -- Albert Einstein

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #42 on: April 09, 2020, 07:54:54 am »
It's a very interesting point, however I believe there's a hole in this theory. In true randomness, you necessarily have maximal complexity, somewhere. For instance, in universe you have earth, which is a very complex spot. The hole I'm talking about is about scope.

You have two elements, on the one hand the mutating thing, and on the other, the "what's best" function. I think what they say in this article is: if you remove randomness from one of these elements, the whole becomes as complex as the less complex element. Since experiments include hand-made material, so to speak, they obtain nothing more than this material's complexity. But if everything was random, like in universe, then you'd have maximal complexity, and complex animals like humans.

What do you think?

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Zero

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #43 on: April 09, 2020, 09:05:47 am »
Neurons work locally, but they also grow axons. It would be cool to have "wormholes" in cellular automata.

Edit: hey, look at this nice library, https://rileyjshaw.com/terra/
« Last Edit: April 09, 2020, 11:28:53 am by Zero »

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Re: Has anyone read Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science"?
« Reply #44 on: April 09, 2020, 02:28:45 pm »
It's a very interesting point, however I believe there's a hole in this theory. In true randomness, you necessarily have maximal complexity, somewhere. For instance, in universe you have earth, which is a very complex spot. The hole I'm talking about is about scope.

You have two elements, on the one hand the mutating thing, and on the other, the "what's best" function. I think what they say in this article is: if you remove randomness from one of these elements, the whole becomes as complex as the less complex element. Since experiments include hand-made material, so to speak, they obtain nothing more than this material's complexity. But if everything was random, like in universe, then you'd have maximal complexity, and complex animals like humans.

What do you think?

Sounds a bit nutty bro... There's no true randomness probably, only laws of physics. When you don't predict/expect something, it can look random like a girl showing you new shirts, until you find out the girl has a list of shirts to try on and show you - she knew prior the order of the shirts's colors...and her decision wasn't random either, just particles moving around freely to pick a color without much reason unless she did use reasoning.

Physics allows for generative and *re*-generative structures already....some do crap and some make clones lol.
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