cellular automata

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

My saturday morning response to all this:

"Thar she blows!"

(But I do want to possess the beast. Must
it still be ordered, or has it been tamed
enough to co-exist peacefully on the
shelves with the rest of the ghosts of
forests past... ?passed?)


In a message dated 7/27/02 6:54:27 AM, sam at zeppomusic.com writes:

<< Thanks for the link, Bandwraith. The papers are

fascinating. But I'm still not so sure Wolfram is a

fraud. (Why am I defending him so ardently?

Eros/Thanatos, black cells / white cells, homoerotic

automata?) I am well aware that he is co-opting and

appropriating the work of others for his own purposes

with arguably insufficient accreditation, b-but: he is

a grand synthesizer. Even if none of the specific ideas

put forward in the book is his own, the expertise with

which he has assembled them into a monolithic treatise

is impressive. He is Pynchonesque in more than just his

egomania, monomania and arrogance. He has created a

cogent behemoth of concepts begged, borrowed, stolen

and, occasionally, created all by his little selfums.

What is that if not a TRPy enterprise?


- Sam.