Complexity

Just some notes here, for now, on our strug­gle to deal with the com­ple­xity of our universe:

Evo­lu­tion gave us the need to model for the sake of pre­dic­ting
…this led to sym­bols for com­mu­ni­ca­ting models to our kin
Tha­les dec­la­red there must be a cen­tral ele­ment that com­pri­ses everything (arch) and the hunt began
The Pytha­go­reans said “all things are num­bers“
Aris­totle gave us rules for rea­so­ning about all things (Cae­go­ries)
Euc­lid added that there must be laws (axioms) (Ele­ments)
…then that Chris­tia­nity thing dis­trac­ted us for 1500 years
Decar­tes applied rea­son to everything, refu­sing to except even mora­lity and human thought (Dis­course on Method)
Issac New­ton gave us the fra­me­work for dis­cer­ning the poli­cies of nature (Prin­ci­pia)
Man­del­brot taught us to see the rules in even com­plex nature (chaos)
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Mandelbrot.html

Stephen Wol­fram wants to teach us to see the algo­rithms (prin­ci­ple of com­pu­ta­tio­nal equi­va­lence):
http://www.wolframscience.com/

How this (and all science) impacts religion

Steve Grand: the uni­verse is about per­sis­tent pat­terns:
http://www.edge.org/q2004/q04_print.html#grand

Seth Lloyd: the uni­verse is a com­pu­ter, fed input data by quan­tum mon­keys. See also Char­les Ben­nett’s logi­cal depth and Rudy Rucker’s repu­dia­tion of the need for quan­tum mecha­nics at end of page.