The
metaphors of information processing and computation are at the center
of today's intellectual action. A new and unified language of science
is beginning to emerge.
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Participants
(left to right): Ray
Kurzweil, Seth Lloyd, JB, Alan Guth, Paul Steinhardt,
Marvin Minsky |
 Dennis
Overbye (The New York Times), Jordan Mejias
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Steve Lohr
(The New York Times), Steven Levy (Newsweek) |
 Marvin
Minsky, Seth Lloyd, Paul Steinhardt, Alan Guth, Ray
Kurzweil |
On
July 21, Edge held an event at Eastover Farm which included
the physicists Seth Lloyd, Paul Steinhardt, and Alan Guth, computer
scientist Marvin Minsky, and technologist Ray Kurzweil. This
year, I noted there are a lot of "universes" floating
around. Seth Lloyd: the computational universe (or, if you prefer,
the it and bit-itty bitty-universe); Paul Steinhardt: the cyclic
universe; Alan Guth: the inflationary universe; Marvin Minsky:
the emotion universe, Ray Kurzweil: the intelligent universe. I
asked each of the speakers to comment on their "universe".
All, to some degree, were concerned with information processing
and computation as central metaphors. See below for their links
to their talks and streaming video.
Concepts of information and computation have infiltrated a wide
range of sciences, from physics and cosmology, to cognitive psychology,
to evolutionary biology, to genetic engineering. Such innovations
as the binary code, the bit, and the algorithm have been applied
in ways that reach far beyond the programming of computers, and
are being used to understand such mysteries as the origins of
the universe, the operation of the human body, and the working
of the mind.
What's
happening in these new scientific endeavors
is truly a work in progress. A year ago,
at the first REBOOTING
CIVILIZATION meeting in July,
2001, physicists Alan Guth and Brian Greene,
computer scientists David Gelernter, Jaron
Lanier, and Jordan Pollack, and research
psychologist Marc D. Hauser could not
reach a consensus about exactly what computation
is, when it is useful, when it is inappropriate,
and what it reveals. Reporting on the
event in The New York Times ("Time
of Growing Pains for Information Age",
August 7, 2001), Dennis
Overbye wrote:
Mr.
Brockman said he had been
inspired to gather the group
by a conversation with Dr.
Seth Lloyd, a professor
of mechanical engineering
and quantum computing expert
at M.I.T. Mr. Brockman recently
posted Dr. Lloyd's statement
on his Web site, www.edge.org:
"Of course, one way
of thinking about all of
life and civilization,"
Dr. Lloyd said, "is
as being about how the world
registers and processes
information. Certainly that's
what sex is about; that's
what history is about.
Humans have always tended
to try to envision the world
and themselves in terms
of the latest technology.
In the 17th and 18th centuries,
for example, workings of
the cosmos were thought
of as the workings of a
clock, and the building
of clockwork automata was
fashionable. But not everybody
in the world of computers
and science agrees with
Dr. Lloyd that the computation
metaphor is ready for prime
time.
Several of the people gathered
under the maple tree had
come in the hopes of debating
that issue with Dr. Lloyd,
but he could not attend
at the last moment. Others
were drawn by what Dr. Greene
called "the glimmer
of a unified language"
in which to talk about physics,
biology, neuroscience and
other realms of thought.
What happened instead was
an illustration of how hard
it is to define a revolution
from the inside.
Indeed,
exactly what computation
and information are continue
to be subjects of intense
debate. But less than a
year later, in the "Week
In Review" section
of the Sunday New York
Times ("What's
So New In A Newfangled Science?",
June 16, 2002) George
Johnson wrote about
"a movement some call
digital physics or digital
philosophy — a worldview
that has been slowly developing
for 20 years."...
Just
last week, a professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology named Seth Lloyd
published a paper in Physical Review
Letters estimating how many calculations
the universe could have performed since
the Big Bang — 10^120 operations
on 10^90 bits of data, putting the mightiest
supercomputer to shame. This grand computation
essentially consists of subatomic particles
ricocheting off one another and "calculating"
where to go.
As the researcher Tommaso Toffoli mused
back in 1984, "In a sense, nature
has been continually computing the `next
state' of the universe for billions
of years; all we have to do — and,
actually, all we can do — is `hitch
a ride' on this huge ongoing computation."
This may seem like an odd way to think
about cosmology. But some scientists
find it no weirder than imagining that
particles dutifully obey ethereal equations
expressing the laws of physics. Last
year Dr. Lloyd created a stir on Edge.org,
a Web site devoted to discussions of
cutting edge science, when he proposed
"Lloyd's hypothesis": "Everything
that's worth understanding about a complex
system can be understood in terms of
how it processes information."*....
Dr,
Lloyd did indeed cause a stir
when his ideas were presented
on Edge in 2001, but
George Johnson's recent New
York Times piece caused
an even greater stir, as Edge
received over half a million
unique visits the following
week, a strong confirmation
that something is indeed happening
here. (Usual Edge readership
is about 60,000 unique visitors
a month). There is no longer
any doubt that the metaphors
of information processing
and computation are at the
center of today's intellectual
action. A new and unified
language of science is beginning
to emerge.
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THE
COMPUTATIONAL UNIVERSE:
SETH LLOYD
[9.16.02]
Every
physical system registers
information, and just by
evolving in time, by doing
its thing, it changes that
information, transforms
that information, or, if
you like, processes that
information. Since I've
been building quantum computers
I've come around to thinking
about the world in terms
of how it processes information.
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THE
CYCLIC UNIVERSE:
PAUL STEINHARDT
[9.16.02]
...in
the last year I've been
involved in the development
of an alternative theory
that turns the cosmic history
topsy-turvy. All the events
that created the important
features of our universe
occur in a different order,
by different physics, at
different times, over different
time scales—and yet
this model seems capable
of reproducing all of the
successful predictions of
the consensus picture with
the same exquisite detail.
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THE
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE:
ALAN
GUTH
[9.16.02]
Inflationary
theory itself is a twist
on the conventional Big
Bang theory. The shortcoming
that inflation is intended
to fill in is the basic
fact that although the Big
Bang theory is called the
Big Bang theory it is, in
fact, not really a theory
of a bang at all; it never
was.
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THE
EMOTION UNIVERSE:
MARVIN
MINSKY
[9.16.02]
To
say that the universe exists
is silly, because it's saying
that the universe is one of
the things in the universe.
There's something wrong with
that idea. If you carry that
a little further, then it
doesn't make any sense to
have a predicate like, "Where
did the universe come from?"
or "Why does it exist?"
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THE
INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE: RAY
KURZWEIL [9.16.02]
The
universe has been set up
in an exquisitely specific
way so that evolution could
produce the people that
are sitting here today and
we could use our intelligence
to talk about the universe.
We see a formidable power
in the ability to use our
minds and the tools we've
created to gather evidence,
to use our inferential abilities
to develop theories, to
test the theories, and to
understand the universe
at increasingly precise
levels.
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WHICH
UNIVERSE WOULD YOU LIKE?
Five stars of American
science meet in Connecticut
to explain first and last
things.
By Jordan
Mejias
August 28, 2002
They
begin a free-floating debate,
which drives them back and
forth across the universe.
Guth encourages the exploration
of black holes, not to be
confused with cosmic wormholes,
which Kurzweil—just like
the heroes of Star Trek—wants
to use as a shortcut for his
intergalactic excursions and
as a means of overtaking light.
Steinhardt suggests that we
should realize that we are
not familiar with most of
what the cosmos consists of
and do not understand its
greatest force, dark matter.
Understand? There is no such
thing as a rational process,
Minsky objects; it is simply
a myth. In his cosmos, emotion
is a word we use to circumscribe
another form of our thinking
that we cannot yet conceive
of. Emotion, Kurzweil interrupts,
is a highly intelligent form
of thinking. "We have
a dinner reservation at a
nearby country restaurant,"
says Brockman in an emotionally
neutral tone.
[English
Translation | Original
German text]
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