Lex Fridman PodcastStephen Wolfram: Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #89
Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- April 18, 2020
- Duration
- 3h 11m
- Channel
- Lex Fridman Podcast
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist who is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, a company behind Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Language, and the new Wolfram Physics project. He is the author of several books including A New Kind of Science, which on a personal note was one of the most influential books in my journey in computer science and artificial intelligence. Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS: Stephen's Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephen_wolfram Stephen's Website: https://www.stephenwolfram.com/ Wolfram Research Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolframResearch Wolfram Research YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/WolframResearch Wolfram Research Website: https://www.wolfram.com/ Wolfram Alpha: https://www.wolframalpha.com/ A New Kind of Science (book): https://amzn.to/34JruB2 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 4:16 - Communicating with an alien intelligence 12:11 - Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey 29:06 - What is computation? 44:54 - Physics emerging from computation 1:14:10 - Simulation 1:19:23 - Fundamental theory of physics 1:28:01 - Richard Feynman 1:39:57 - Role of ego in science 1:47:21 - Cellular automata 2:15:08 - Wolfram language 2:55:14 - What is intelligence? 2:57:47 - Consciousness 3:02:36 - Mortality 3:05:47 - Meaning of life CONNECT:
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SPEAKERS
Lex Fridman
hostStephen Wolfram
guest
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Stephen Wolfram, Stephen Wolfram: Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #89 explores stephen Wolfram Reimagines Physics, Intelligence, and Reality as Computation Lex Fridman and Stephen Wolfram discuss Wolfram’s lifelong project of viewing the universe, physics, and intelligence through the lens of computation, especially via simple programs like cellular automata. Wolfram explains how remarkably complex behavior – potentially as rich as human thought – can emerge from extremely simple rules, leading to his Principle of Computational Equivalence and the idea of computational irreducibility. They explore a new candidate framework for fundamental physics based on hypergraph rewriting, in which space, time, relativity, and possibly quantum mechanics emerge from purely combinatorial rules. The conversation also covers Wolfram Language and Wolfram|Alpha as attempts to encode the world’s knowledge computationally, the future of AI and AI ethics, and philosophical questions about consciousness, ego, and the meaning of life in a computational universe.
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