>>> Sure. I just didn't find it interesting, given there *are* CAs that 
>>> are known to be (and easily provable to be) turing complete.
>>
>> Personally I find it interesting, but interesting in a "ok, that's 
>> sort of neat" way rather than as providing any sort of fundamental 
>> insight. I basically agree with your assessment otherwise though.
> 
> Well, yeah. I mean, it was interesting that something as simple as a 
> tiny linear CA could be made turing complete without actually obviously 
> emulating a machine. I didn't find it "fundamentally" interesting. 
> Certainly not something I'd call a "new science" for example.

If you could prove not that one particular "simple" system is 
Turing-complete, but that huge classes of simple systems are, *that* 
would be an interesting result.

(Presumably such a result would include deciding exactly when a simple 
system is or isn't Turing-complete.)

I still wouldn't describe it as a "new kind of science". Indeed, from 
what I can gather, NKS isn't some sweeping new paradigm. It's just a new 
and unusual way of looking at and thinking about things. That's not to 
say there aren't interesting things to be learned from this point of 
view, but it hardly rocked my world.

Fractal geometry already tells us that simple rules can generate complex 
behaviour. Chaos theory already tells us that deterministic, simple 
systems can still be highly unpredictable. NKS doesn't seem to add very 
much. There's a few small, specific things which are interesting, but 
it's not nearly as radical as people are saying.

But then again, isn't this the same Mr Wolfram who claims that 
Mathematica fundamentally transforms the way computer mathematics 
happens? Or that Wolfram Alpha is going to revolutionise the human race?

Sure, Mathematica is a great piece of software, but I guess we should 
take anything Mr Wolfram says with a pinch of salt...

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