Ed, (01)
On Monday 04 February 2008 09:17, Ed Barkmeyer wrote:
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > On Friday 01 February 2008 19:18, Francis McCabe wrote:
> >> ...
> >>
> >> Being deterministic is not the same as being predictable. Chaos
> >> Theory/ Fractals tells us that; as does the weather.
> >
> > Chaotic behavior occurs only in continuous systems. Digital
> > computers are discrete, and that is not an incidental or
> > unimportant difference. (02)
I am both aware of (most of) what you write and in agreement with the
upshot. And, sadly, I have myself encountered some of the more onerous
manifestations of unpredictability from computers and computer programs
(the dreaded Heisenbug is something most programmers have had to deal
with). (03)
I really just wanted to remark that classic chaos as seen in things like
three-body systems are not something we can capture in digital systems.
But I don't see much of a problem with this. We can, without too much
trouble, get genuinely stochastic effects. One workable method is with
a device built around an unstable isotope. Some folks at SGI once even
demonstrated (somewhat whimsically) that a Lava Lamp could be used to
generate a truly random information stream. (04)
But I don't think that classic chaotic behaviors have any essential role
in synthesizing intelligent behaviors in information systems. (05)
> ...
>
> -Ed (06)
Randall Schulz (07)
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