Ventana software support forum

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2002 8:31 am**

Hi

I am in the process of reading the book below. For me it has some
interesting relationships with SD. Even without these relationships, it is
a facinating book and I point it out to interested members of the
community.

I would be grateful for any comments from anyone who has finished
reading it!

"A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram. ISBN 1579550088
(May 2002)

RegardsPhilip Keogh
(Pathology Information Officer)
Tel 0113 392 2392
email philipk@pathology.leeds.ac.uk
Please visit our web-site at www.leedsteachinghospitals.com

Posted: **Sun Jun 23, 2002 10:54 am**

Philip,

I was fascinated by the subject matter of the book as well. I read about it
in Wired magazine, June 2002, p. 132, "The Man Who Cracked the Code to
Everything", by Steven Levy. For the field of simulation in general and SD
specifically, the concept of "principle of computational equivalence" has
huge implications. Does the principle mean that knowledge accumulation will
accelerate because simulated experimentation will replace or enhance the
discover new algorithms and explanations usually based on physical
experimentation?

I look forward to reading the book and seeing more comments on this
listserve.

Regards,

Dr. Warren W. Tignor PhD
Chief Architect
SAIC
410 865 2450
wtignor@ieee.org

Posted: **Mon Jun 24, 2002 7:48 am**

Warren --

The article in Wired that you mention was indeed very good. Its strong
points were the personal background on Wolfram and the history of the
creation of the book. Here
(http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 10&tid=134) is
the best actual review of the contents that Ive seen to date. Although
the reviewer freely admits to not having read the book (nor have I), he
provides an interesting and credible synopsis. What I wonder, after all
the dust settles, is whether cellular automata can go beyond faithfully
replicating reality to explaining why? And, if they cant explain why,
can they still be useful for formulating policies?

Peter Hollings
From: "Peter Hollings" <phollings@attbi.com>

Posted: **Wed Jun 26, 2002 8:48 am**

Greetings Jay!

I didnt mean to imply that Wolfram claimed that CA would be valuable as
an explanatory tool. I was just trying to be cautious about potential
limitations to this "New Kind of Science" in the face of the popular
hype surrounding the book. (In it, Wolfram conjectures that the universe
might be replicated with four lines of code.) Your onion analogy stated
the case better than I. As I understand it, this is also the experience
with neural network models: although they can be trained to replicate
real behaviors, they are of little help in understanding those
behaviors. So, is it not a common characteristic of highly
disaggregated models that they might succeed at replicating and even
predicting real world behavior, but they are of limited use in
explaining it? Is there theory or just experience that this is the
case? On the other hand, might Wolfram, with his four classes of CA
systems, be laying a foundation for understanding the behavior of
highly disaggregated systems?

Im sorry that you couldnt find the review on Slashdot, because it was,
I thought, a good one.

Incidentally the review is still there. Here is an URL that just worked
for me:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... ad&tid=134

Peter Hollings
122 Tuxedo Terrace, NW
Atlanta, GA 30342
(404) 237-7155
phollings@alum.mit.edu

Posted: **Wed Jun 26, 2002 8:51 am**

Greetings to all:

As some may remember I replied to an email about
SD and electronic markets on December 2, 2001 in
which I indicated that a company known as Bios
Group, LP (www.biosgroup.com) had extensively
modelled the NASDAQ market using Artificial Life
techniques. Among these techniques are Cellular
Automata, Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms,
and other Constrained Generating Procedures. (See
Emergence: From Chaos to Order by John H.
Holland, Addison-Wesley, 1998). "Agent-Based
Models" are used extensively to model complex
systems.

I agree that these techniques do not necessarily
fully capture reality but I believe they do make
great strides in modeling complex behavior, and
my suggestion is that in concert with SD,
techniques such as CA, GA, NN, and CGP can
greatly enhance our understanding of complex
systems and our ability to predict outcomes.

I have not read Wolframs book but plan to do so
in the near future. I would suggest further
reading in this area before drawing any
conclusions, especially John Holland, Stuart
Kauffman, and Chris Langton.

Have a nice day!!

David

Dr. David Wimberly
Chairman & CEO
SDGI
System Dynamics Group International
3832 Baymeadows Road # 354
Jacksonville, FL 32217-4690
904-891-8364
email SystemDynamics@ureach.com

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