stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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Reading through the comments I see a few nice ones:
| Quote | Reciprocating Bill // Sep 28th 2006 at 9:44 pm
“Every aspect of the simulation, both hardware and software, must be subject to random errors.”
This makes *exactly* as much sense as requiring that a supercomputer simulating a hurricane blow over tables and chairs, drench the operator, and cause widespread power outages.
You have forgotten what Turing demonstrated: the power of computation lies in the independence of computational algorithms from the physical substrate upon which the computation is instantiated.
Comment by Reciprocating Bill — September 28, 2006 @ 9:44 pm
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| Quote | 7. Tom English // Sep 29th 2006 at 12:30 am
Teaching computer science students from the undergraduate to the doctoral level, I encountered quite a few who were excellent programmers, but who could not begin to comprehend the notion of a model. The concept is simply too abstract for some people. They never catch on to it.
A simulation model of evolution executes on a computer, but the computer, its operating system, and the runtime system of the programming language in which the simulation was written are not part of the model. Their function is to execute precisely the evolutionary model specified by the programmer. Any environmental cataclysms are simulated by the program itself, and are not a matter of failure of the computer hardware or the software operating system. That is, the environment is simulated by a properly functioning computer. The computer itself is not the simulated environment.
I say categorically, as someone who has worked in evolutionary computation for 15 years, that Gil does not understand what he is talking about. This is not to say that he is trying to mislead anyone. It is simply clear that he has never grasped the nature of a simulation model. His comments reflect the sort of concrete thinking I have tried to help many students grow beyond, often without success.
Comment by Tom English — September 29, 2006 @ 12:30 am
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