Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Events are like functions, whose “arguments” are incoming tokens, and whose output is one or more outgoing tokens. Imagine for example that one has a neural net with a certain architecture. And the same issue arose for Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus (introduced around 1930). One is so-called Böhm trees.

Physics 66

Physics Sciences Science Mathematics 66

Stephen Wolfram

SEPTEMBER 9, 2021

Events are like functions, whose “arguments” are incoming tokens, and whose output is one or more outgoing tokens. Imagine for example that one has a neural net with a certain architecture. And the same issue arose for Alonzo Church’s lambda calculus (introduced around 1930). One is so-called Böhm trees.

Science 60

Science Sciences Physics Mathematics 60

Stephen Wolfram

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

But what about other models of computation—like cellular automata or register machines or lambda calculus? And we can trace the argument for this to the Principle of Computational Equivalence. We’ve talked about building up the ruliad using Turing machines. A very important claim about the ruliad is that it’s unique.

Physics 117

Physics Mathematics Computer Construction 117

Stephen Wolfram

AUGUST 22, 2023

It didn’t help that his knowledge of physics was at best spotty (and, for example, I don’t think he ever really learned calculus). Richard Feynman and I would get into very fierce arguments. But it also led him to the idea that the universe must be a giant cellular automaton—whose program he could invent. It’s just my nature.

Computer 69

Computer Physics Sciences Science 69