0505: "A Bunch of Rocks"

[Synthuir]

How would Rule 34 even APPLY to Wolfram's rule?? I mean, waht kind of porn could you make of that??!?!


I'm seriously asking here, guys.

Recurring patterns start to make a NSF(W/H/L) picture....?

[Kaiyas]

How would Rule 34 even APPLY to Wolfram's rule?? I mean, waht kind of porn could you make of that??!?!


I'm seriously asking here, guys.

Recurring patterns start to make a NSF(W/H/L) picture....?

Paramecium sex.

[3.14159265...]

Do you think this is a very bad comic, specially it's reflection on Randal?

If so, send me a message because I really do.

[negatron]

It is both impossible to prove whether anything exists and impossible to deny it

"I think therefore I am", there's a reason the phrase is popular. The very fact I can contemplate the questions suggests I do exist. What existence is, that however I do not know, I'm only confident it's reducible to information. Pure information may be non-existential by someone's definition, but I think that someone is merely deluded by the palpability of the material world as we have come to know it, which to their disregard is only perceived through an information system.

I would be willing to describe our brains and computers as nested information systems. There's no reason to complicate physical reality as being outside of information systems when the two coincide, and making the faithful assumption serves no scientific purpose. If reality is not information, then it cannot by definition be understood, explained, or even conceived of mentally. This doesn't make sense to me so I'll stick with the most functional explanation, which thus far has been perfectly usable.

[luketheduke]

Both of these paths [whether existance is a chain of imaginations, or if existance lies in the eye of the beholder], however, tend to lead us to the same conclusion. It is both impossible to prove whether anything exists and impossible to deny it - that's not a very nice conclusion though

However, it is practical to assume existance. Strictly operating on the presumption of non-existance would mean adhering to strict Nihilism. I think Kierkegaard said it - "If a philosopher determines life is not worth living, he has to kill himself"(the quote goes on - "and this is why most philosophers come to the conclusion that life is worth living". not true to the word, of course). Now imagine you were wrong - then you just wasted a perfectly good life.

[AtG]

Porn with diagonal lines crossing from upper right to lower left. Quite a narrow fetishism.

[Diadem]

...
For our universe, this is in fact needed. Communication is capped by the speed of light after all. And if our universe is discrete, then probably the speed of light translates to moving 1 cell each timestep

Which is consistent with the values for the Planck time and distance (as given in the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units):

• Planck Time: 5.391x10⁴⁴ m
• Planck Length: 1.616x10^-35 s

L_planck / T_planck ~= 300,000,000 m/s

(that's a tilde before the equals—meant to denote approximate equality—in case your browser font makes it look like a minus sign, as mine does.)

Correct. But of course this follows from the definition of Planck Units. It's not said that one time tick of our universe corresponds to one Planck time. Or that one cell of the universe is one Planck length. We don't know. We can't know.

Actually we can know that the situation is not as simple as I described. If it were, light would move slower diagonally, which is clearly not the case. So our universe probably isn't a simple grid.

How it does work, well, that's of course the tough question. Personally I think it is discrete. Simply because the opposite, a continues universe, seems philosophically absurd. It would imply an infinite information content. Also in quantum theory energy and momentum are clearly quantized. So information could very well be as well.

[Shpadoinkle]

Do you think this is a very bad comic, specially it's reflection on Randal?

If so, send me a message because I really do.

What the hell are you talking about?

[Endless]

I was reading through the thread again and I was reminded of the comic Planetary, by Warren Ellis.
A constant sub-plotundercurrent of the sotry is the idea that the universe (well multi0verse in the case of the comic)are 3 dimensional byproducts of 2-D informational planes arranged in stacks.

Did not know that that idea had feasibility in programming and string theroy.



Also, I'm confused as to how the arrangment of rocks can act as a simulation if there is nothing to percieve the way they interact. My original thought was that Rock-man acted as a processor and viewer, but after reading further that appears to not be the case. I'm confused as to how an arrangment of rocks could understand the signifgance of their arrangment. Unless I'm overlooking the figurative quality of the comic.

[neurosci_queen]

Porn with diagonal lines crossing from upper right to lower left. Quite a narrow fetishism.

You are both a wonderful and a horrible person at the same time. I'm jus' sayin'.

[neurosci_queen]

How would Rule 34 even APPLY to Wolfram's rule?? I mean, waht kind of porn could you make of that??!?!


I'm seriously asking here, guys.

Recurring patterns start to make a NSF(W/H/L) picture....?

O_O NSFL INDEED.

[neurosci_queen]

Do you think this is a very bad comic, specially it's reflection on Randal?

If so, send me a message because I really do.

What the hell are you talking about?

Yeah, seriously. This is a wonderful comic! Why would this be bad?

[RanCorp]

...Why would this be bad?

The blasphemy?


RanCorp

[dennisw]

I wonder how streamlined and efficient a computer could be if there was no interface, you programmed every bit.

See Altair 8800.

[dennisw]

Can they [electrons] move continuously, or do they teleport in the "erase me here, draw me there" manner?

No.

I'm not sure we know enough to answer that so definitively. For all we know, space is quantized at the Planck scale and that means that in essence there is effectively an integer coordinate system to space (whose geometry is still that of Einsteinan GR). (Giving new meaning to being on or off the grid...)

RanCorp

I call Heisenberg on you.

[dennisw]

Now, me not being a programmer, i would have just made a nice little society out of all those rocks...
i guess i'm just that simple.

Halfway through writing the program, I would have painted a face on one of the rocks and yelled "I have created FIRE!"

[dennisw]

So, is this a simulation of the universe minute by minute or is it just meant to run a simulation if the stones were read?

And can he ever, really, be done?

To simulate the universe in real time you'd need a quantum computer. Then again, desert guy seems a lot smarter than I.

You would need a quantum computer the size of the universe. You see, the universe actually is a quantum computer, the question is: What is it calculating?

42

[RanCorp]

I call Heisenberg on you.

I hear they have compensators for that stuff...
Inertial dampers, too (it's a little known fact that momentum and kinetic energy are actually the same thing).

I'm writing a new textbook that will make Einstein entirely obsolete. I pieced it together from postings on sci.physics.*

RanCorp

[Musturd]

Do you think Randall meant for his code to be the Sierpenski fractal set -- or that it just happened?

I was thinking about this last night.
If in fact a simulator for the universe when coded resembles a fractal set, then it wouldn't be more efficient to make a polyglot with the rocks and whitespace (or sandspace). The sandspace program would be a quine for the polyglot. Then you could just put a piece of the code into an infinite loop, and it would save a ton of time writing.

Not in college yet, so I could be using terms wrong, but you guys get the point.

[nupanick]

This inspired me to write a program for my TI-84+SE that starts with one row of pixels and creates new rows according to wolfram's rules. Then I made limits on the edges of the screen and had the bottom wrap to the top. Then I made it be able to take any rule from 0 to 255. A friend and I were putting in various rules and starting conditions and I discovered that if you run rule 122 and start with a two-pixel block, the resulting stack of sequential rows approximates the sierpinski triangle! And we found this all by messing with the rules, trying numbers that sounded fun.

Rule 42 is boring, unfortunately. Within one generation everything turns into a glider and your final pattern is a bunch of diagonal lines. Same with rule 34 except with smaller gliders. I think the best idea I've seen so far for Rule 34 of Rule 34 is from way back on the first page:

I have a truly marvelous rule 34 of this proposition which this post is too narrow to contain.

(also, it's nsfw.)

Spoiler:

The image below fully represents Wolfram's rule 34:


Redraw it, in the following manner:

• The three input cells of each item is drawn as three individuals. Each one is wearing clothes of a color corresponding to their location (say, for example, that the left cell wears green)
• "Input cell" individuals are drawn as guys if the cell is black (a "1"), and girls if the cell is white (a "0").
• If the result cell is black (a "1"), the result is an orgy with all three members.
• If the result cell is white (a "0"), the result is the three standing uncomfortably in close proximity.

(Interestingly, Wolfram's rule 34 guarantees that the result will always have the possibility of remaining heterosexual.)

I lack the sufficient artistic ability to actually implement this. Ergo, I call upon rule 35 and you, dear reader. Go forth and create.

Oh, and I messed around with Rule 110, which had some promising results, but it relies on a repeating infinite background pattern for the gliders to move within, so I'm not sure if it's really turing complete. Rule 30 simulates some particle systems, though, and might be decent for a physics simulator (if you had arbitrarily large time and space).

One of the god theories (that's lowercase "t," as in theory; not Theory. I can't stand when the creationists mess that up) I considered once was that God made the rules and the initial conditions and set the universe in motion, but I think I may prefer the concept that the universe is being simulated by an immortal being on an infinite plane with nothing better to do. Similar to an earlier concept(not cult) I thought of, wherein god is having a really long, really weird dream, and we're all constructs of its(gender-unspecified, not necessarily neutral) subconscious.

While I'm on about religious beliefs I hold non-religiously, I also conjecture(not assert) that we are free(relatively speaking) to make whatever choice we make, but that from a sufficient vantage point(like a higher spacial dimension) we have already made it(the choice). It's the sort of "local free" will I think we'd have if life was like a novel: the characters can do whatever they want in their world, but ultimately anyone reading the book can just open to the end to see what they did.

When I work the last bugs out of my program it's going on http://www.ticalc.org, in the TI-83+ BASIC section.

[Alpha Omicron]

Not that anyone at all interested in cellular automata should find and download the programs MCell and Life32.

[Akeaka]

I wonder how he would make a ZIP or .RAR file!

Also, if he was creative enough, he would use friction from the rocks to melt the sand around him, and make a castle!

[OBloodyHell]

Assuming this is to be a reflection on THIS universe, there is a problem in the existence of non-computable problems, that is, there are known problems which cannot be solved by a Turing Machine.

That there are such problems in the universe would argue, I'd suggest, that this universe can't be running on a Turing device, no matter how big.


I openly invite proof that it is possible to define uncomputable problems within the context of a sim running on a Turing Machine...



.

[scarletmanuka]

Assuming this is to be a reflection on THIS universe, there is a problem in the existence of non-computable problems, that is, there are known problems which cannot be solved by a Turing Machine.

That there are such problems in the universe would argue, I'd suggest, that this universe can't be running on a Turing device, no matter how big.

I don't think that follows. Proving that a given problem (call it Problem A) cannot be solved by a Turing machine does not mean that you have to use steps in the proof that cannot be done on a Turing machine. You'd only have to do that if you were finding a solution to Problem A, but you're actually finding a solution to Problem B: "Is Problem A solvable by a Turing machine?" Problem B may very well be simpler than Problem A.

[EmpJohnIV]

I was reading through the thread again and I was reminded of the comic Planetary, by Warren Ellis.
A constant sub-plotundercurrent of the sotry is the idea that the universe (well multi0verse in the case of the comic)are 3 dimensional byproducts of 2-D informational planes arranged in stacks.

Did not know that that idea had feasibility in programming and string theroy.



Also, I'm confused as to how the arrangment of rocks can act as a simulation if there is nothing to percieve the way they interact. My original thought was that Rock-man acted as a processor and viewer, but after reading further that appears to not be the case. I'm confused as to how an arrangment of rocks could understand the signifgance of their arrangment. Unless I'm overlooking the figurative quality of the comic.

Why do they need to be perceived? Do Xbox 360s turn off when we look away? Does our universe need an out side observer keeping an eye on it, or it will blink out of existence ala Berkley?

The dreadful suggestion is that if a 'proper computer' ran a model of our universe, our universe would, TO US be completely real; that if this is the case, a Turing machine, (which can by definition do everything a 'real computer' can) could run a model of our universe, and it would be completely real, to us, even if no one on the outside tried to interpret the Turing machine; A Turing machine really is the execution of a derivation rule set that can compute universally; The laying down of those stones, in this pattern that follows Turing complete rules, is a Turing machine, and can emulate our universe. But when we think about the desert example, it seems as though our existence, and its being actual to us, can't possibly be contingent on whether the stones are actually laid out. Even if desert man decided to stop after a few googol lines and start trying a different project, would our universe stop? If not does the existence of our universe, or any other universe even need to be actualized by a "rock mover" or a prime mover, or can a universe be actual to itself merely by being possible?

[scarletmanuka]

Also, I'm confused as to how the arrangment of rocks can act as a simulation if there is nothing to percieve the way they interact. My original thought was that Rock-man acted as a processor and viewer, but after reading further that appears to not be the case. I'm confused as to how an arrangment of rocks could understand the signifgance of their arrangment. Unless I'm overlooking the figurative quality of the comic.

Please, read Greg Egan's Permutation City. It explores these questions far more deeply than any of us can in a forum thread. You'll still be confused, but (as Lois McMaster Bujold puts it) you will have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement. Trust me, it's worth it.

[Hiato]

... The very fact I can contemplate the questions suggests I do exist ... If reality is not information, then it cannot by definition be understood, explained, or even conceived of mentally...

You see, the problem underlying all of this thinking is the universality of logic itself. I, for one, believe that logic and other irregular processes are all merely a subset of some greater methodical, regular approach to reality. This can be demonstrated through the ability of logic to place a meta-prediction, if you will, on the result of an irregular process by stating: "It cannot be predicted". The reason that this is of importance comes down to the very concept encapsulated by your statements, that is, the ability of the mind to accept a scenario and reason out what is apparently a uniform solution. The problem with this is twofold: If existence is not as tangible as made out to be (which is likely), then it is not of a form that the human mind can comprehend, thus secondly, if this is true, then the human mind can make no predictions about it (including this one) as we cannot guarantee the uniformity of human reasoning/logic with respects to such removed concepts.

This doesn't disprove your argument anymore than mine, rather emphasizes the fact that our "informed opinions" (meant with no sarcasm) are limited to just that - opinions. Once more, this almost assures us that the case for total, uniform non-existence is just as strong as any other. [Just to be difficult, and different, I buy into this]. Finally, it does also allow for the concepts of relative existence and varying degrees of existence, all of which may be right or wrong - simultaneously. (I wonder if that come out right)

...Strictly operating on the presumption of non-existance would mean adhering to strict Nihilism...

Well, I'm going to look this one up, I've no idea what it means, but sounds fascinating. Thanks

EDIT: Researched, and I seem to appreciate some of the views propagated by Nihilism. Yet, still, I disagree. I wrote a very brief little logical explanation of my viewpoint outlining how, trivially, non-existence could be classified as a form of existence. It is available on my website under "Misc. Ideas and Thoughts" under "What doesn't exist?" (no link available as that violates the rules). [I am not demanding you read this, rather I would be honoured if you did] The main point is that I don't believe your statement necessarily to be the case, yet I thank you for introducing me to another awesome field of the unfathomable imprecise science that is Philosophy

[sgharms]

I really liked this comic, it had a beautiful and elegiac quality to it, but I really feel its beauty was thrown off by the punchline in the last two frames.

I believe the poetry of it would have been better served by a repeat of the opening wide panel, but this time with the sun visibly setting.

The comic also had this nice neo-Platonic / Gnostic quality to it: the man in the desert as the Demiurge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge). I really like the XKCD word that borders on the Zen-like poetic, no need to tack on a “ha-ha” moment, the audience can leave puzzled and reflective and still be just as satisfied.

[*Wildfire*]

Rule 110 is the only Turing complete wolfram's rule. (well, it and its inverses and reflections) Rock guy is using rule 110. Also, the "program" appeared to generate large triangles, you think that might be due to the programmatic nature of the universe?

IIRC rule 30 has class 4 behaviors (semi-random output, like 110), but 110 was proven to be capable of being a universal turing machine.

More to the point... the pattern is rule 110. Here's one bit of it, with the 8 different conditions highlighted... note how they exactly match rule 110.

I must concede. You both are correct, this is rule 110. I wasn't looking at the close-up picture to actually verify the conditions, but was looking at the large scale one below with the random triangles. I also have been learning as I go and didn't look at what happened to 110 with random versus simple starting conditions. It, too, develops different sized triangles. So...touche good sirs!

I am very curious how rule 110 was shown to be Turing-complete???

P.S. I stick by my original post, that it is not Sierpinski's triangle!!!!

[OmegaLord]

Randall stole this comic from monotheism.

[Diadem]

Assuming this is to be a reflection on THIS universe, there is a problem in the existence of non-computable problems, that is, there are known problems which cannot be solved by a Turing Machine.

That there are such problems in the universe would argue, I'd suggest, that this universe can't be running on a Turing device, no matter how big.

Why is this problematic?

So there are some problems that we can not solve. Can never solve. It may be philosophically interesting - in fact it certainly is. But how is it a proof against our universe being a turing machine?

Now if you could proof that a certain problem can not be solved on a turing machine the size of our universe - and then proceed to solve it. Then you'd have something interesting. But a Turing machine the size of our universe is pretty complex. It won't be easy to prove the unsolvability of a specific problem on a Turing machine of that size.

[Indie88]

I have no idea what rule 34 is but I really enjoyed this comic regardless. I like that you don't HAVE to be a science, math, physics or politics boffin to enjoy xkcd.

[negatron]

Assuming this is to be a reflection on THIS universe, there is a problem in the existence of non-computable problems, that is, there are known problems which cannot be solved by a Turing Machine.

That there are such problems in the universe would argue, I'd suggest, that this universe can't be running on a Turing device, no matter how big.

So you must assume that the universe IS solving undecidable problems. The problems do exist IN the universe, but I have not heard anyone suggest that they're being solved by the universe.

Irrational numbers as far as we know don't exist in the universe just as they don't exist in computers. Because they can be symbolically represented and calculated to some finite precision doesn't imply that it's ultimate value is innately complete within "reality".

If the universe is infinite, an infinitely large Turing machine would fit it perfectly, however the universe cannot be said to contain/compute an infinitely large number because at no point in time, such as now,(which isn't the end of infinity), could that number possibly exist.

[tikiboy2^2^n+1]

Hey did anyone notice that the binary in this comic is 42 in decimal form? And if you know A Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy then you know it's the meaning of life.

[Rebel Dream]

So the universe factory is a desert?

[Felstaff]

I have no idea what rule 34 is but I really enjoyed this comic regardless. I like that you don't HAVE to be a science, math, physics or politics boffin to enjoy xkcd.

Rule #34: If it exists, there is pornography of it.

Rule #34 has been applied to Randall Munroe, as well as your childhood idols.

Yeah.

[OBloodyHell]

So you must assume that the universe IS solving undecidable problems. The problems do exist IN the universe, but I have not heard anyone suggest that they're being solved by the universe.

Irrational numbers as far as we know don't exist in the universe just as they don't exist in computers. Because they can be symbolically represented and calculated to some finite precision doesn't imply that it's ultimate value is innately complete within "reality".

If the universe is infinite, an infinitely large Turing machine would fit it perfectly, however the universe cannot be said to contain/compute an infinitely large number because at no point in time, such as now,(which isn't the end of infinity), could that number possibly exist.

A) I said some problems are identifiable as unsolvable by a Turing device. I didn't say that none of those had been solved. I'm not fully up to speed on the known non-computability problems, but I think some of them have been solved using non-Turing techniques. If this is so, then all the arguments above (both by you and others) are, I would argue, invalid, since they all seem to play on some variation of your supposition.

17) Irrational numbers appear all throughout the universe. Pi is rather obvious, as is "e"... I seem to recall that some of the fractal algorithms (which also appear to be VERY implicit in the universe's structure) also introduce some of their own unique irrational constants. If irrational constants appear in the design of the universe (and the fact that they are constant and irrational implies that) then clearly they exist in the universe -- or are you attempting to imply that their presence in the metastructure can be considered somehow independent of their presence in the universe itself?

+) How do you know that we aren't past "infinity" at this point? Perhaps we've passed Aleph-Null and we're headed to Aleph-One (or some further advanced Aleph number)? Further, since we really don't have any concept of "infinity" (The word "infinity" is basically a fancy way of stating "Here there be Dragons") it's pretty presumptuous to assume you know anything about the current state of an infinite universe as far as the qualities of its infinite nature and limits thereupon. Our understanding of infinity and its properties are pretty limited so far. We can demonstrate that there is more than one level of infinity, and suspect there are at least three, but we've hardly got any sort of algebra, much less a calculus, of infinity. "And here we encounter infinity" is pretty much the end of a proof or an argument. Much of the tap-dancing in proofs is to avoid ugly things that result in infinite values, like division by zero.

[negatron]

I'm not fully up to speed on the known non-computability problems, but I think some of them have been solved using non-Turing techniques.

That's interesting. I know intractable problems can be solved by non-Turing techniques, I've not heard of undecidable problems being solved.

Irrational numbers appear all throughout the universe.

They only appear as finite values. They're only irrational in principle not in practice. You can have a tree trunk as perfectly round as can be, but you're only gonna get so much pi out of it until you hit the planck length.

If irrational constants appear in the design of the universe (and the fact that they are constant and irrational implies that)

Again, I gotta disagree. If you create a ray-trace environment using a sphere with a light on top and a translucent square on the bottom, you can perform a Mobius transformation, even complex patterns that come from inversions which are describable by fairly complex mathematics, including irrational numbers, without having these constants present in the program. These irrational numbers in this case are emergent, they're not in the program yet they correspond exactly.

How do you know that we aren't past "infinity" at this point? Perhaps we've passed Aleph-Null and we're headed to Aleph-One (or some further advanced Aleph number)?

In either case, there' s no theoretical limit to how long a Turing machine can run. For infinity if so desired.

I'll concede, I too can reasonably assume the universe is infinite, if we can somehow come to terms with what the word universe means. But this doesn't interfere with my idea of a computable universe, so lets make it so.

[tricky77puzzle]

How would Rule 34 even APPLY to Wolfram's rule?? I mean, waht kind of porn could you make of that??!?!


I'm seriously asking here, guys.

Recurring patterns start to make a NSF(W/H/L) picture....?

Wolfram Rule 34 is just a series of down-left lines.

Even I don't know how porn could be made of that. Even paramecium sex.

[Musturd]

Oh.. I get the alt-text now.
He says that he used Wolfram's Rule 34, and he is calling Rule 34 of the internet on Wolfram's rule.