Random Thoughts on the Programmed Universe
Blogging colleague Rayne began a thread over at her site last week talking about Stephen Wolfram’s theory that the universe is composed of cellular automata and all phenomena the result of pre-programmed interactions. Rayne summarizes the point as follows:
Wolfram’s premise suggests that science move from 3D to 4D, like the shift from Newtonian to quantum physics, breaking everything down from cellular level to the quark – everything can be attributed to a pattern, a program, a script. He removes intelligence from much of the complexity we see around us, attributing it to the computational irreducibility of certain programs. Through the concept of computational equivalence, Wolfram encourages us to see that we and the universe are equally complex, equally computationally irreducible. (For this reason we perceive intelligence where there may not be any, just a really complex program.)
Now I have not read Wolfram and I am not a scientist or mathematician, but I have a deep-seated hostility to any theory that suggests complex systems are deterministic in any fundamental way. If Wolfram is suggesting that the apparent complexity of the universe arises from a finite set of initial conditions and constants (such as atomic valance, or the speed of light), and if these initial conditions were only slightly different, the universe would behave in radically different ways – that seems self-evident. It’s the old “if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle” argument: true, but productive of nothing. Irreducible constants explain a lot, but they do not and cannot predict the shape that a complex system will take over time.
We know from chaos theory that the right “rules” can produce infinitely complex and interesting results from a relatively simple starting point as a system evolves. Occasionally, the results are intelligible, though they did not arise from an “intelligent” (or intentional) act of creation – merely through the iteration of data through a fixed set of conditions over time. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the phenomena of the physical universe arose from such a process, and as we learn more about the rules of the game, we can explain – even predict in a local way – the behavior of those phenomena.
I guess what I really object to is the leap from this reasonable position to the supposition that there is a “really complex program” at work. This suggests that the initial conditions were set (by whom?) with the goal of producing a specific outcome. To me, a “program” indicates a process that produces a specific and repeatable result – the same thing, every time. Running a piece of wood through a table saw produces two pieces of wood. If you do it right, you don’t have to guess how big they will be, and you never have to worry about getting 4 or 20 or an infinite number of boards out of a single iteration of the process. Running a piece of wood through a chipper-shredder is also a program, but a useless one if you are trying to accurately predict the results. Perhaps once in a million, the chips will land in a way so as to spell your initials on the ground, but that’s by no means a certain, designed or intelligent outcome. If the “program” that runs the universe operates like a chipper-shredder – e.g., it works the same process every time, but produces different results – isn’t it trivial to suggest that has anything in common with “intelligence,” with its deep connotations of intentionality, or a "script" with a beginning, middle and end? Or is that, in fact, what Wolfram is trying to say?
Ball’s in your court, Rayne.
10:50:59 AM 
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