RS wrote on one level how the algorithmic revolution was "epistemological". I objected to this partly. let me quote the dictionary defn of epistemology
epistemology-- the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and theory of knowledge. now in newtons time, science was seen as a branch of philosophy. however in modern times, philosophy has become somewhat disconnected from science and followed its own course. so to me to label a genuine scientific paradigm shift "epistemological" seems to downplay its significance somewhat as a little too abstract. the scientific revolution is not merely about a different way of seeing the universe, but a different way of interacting with it. (experimental method, etc.) this is exactly the way in which I insist the "algorithmic revolution" be interpreted as I outlined.. not "merely" a shift in the way we view the world. (unfortunately "paradigm shift" terminology sometimes implies a merely conceptual, subjective shift in view, partly due to kuhns perspective, but a paradigm shift means much more than a mere psychological rearrangement.) next, RS defines the clockwork metaphor in terms of the newtonian revolution. this is very reasonable and there is a high correlation. however I would argue the clockwork paradigm is ongoing. the clockwork universe involved multiple new ways of seeing the world. one of them, indeed, was newtonian mathematical laws for physics, gravitation, etcetera. another was determinism, ala the famous laplacian quote re: atoms as billiard balls. however another was simply, "universe as mechanistic". the clock is a machine. the clock metaphor proposes the universe runs like a kind of automated machine subject to mathematical/physical laws. lets be very careful to define "clockwork universe metaphor" in terms of the accurate history of its origination, not from our modern point of view. note that in the middle ages, prior to the newtonian revolution, the previous paradigm for the concept of "force" was something sometimes involving supernatural aspects. the world was presumed to be set in motion by god & influenced by various spirits, entities, etcetera in ways not fully conceivable. this is what the clockwork metaphor replaced. the "universe as mechanistic" theme from the clockwork metaphor persists to this day. einsteins relativistic theory involved the consideration at clocks in moving frames. when physicists analyze particle dynamics, or even search for a TOE as we are here, I would say the clockwork metaphor is still alive. its still ticking, so to speak.. wink again, let me contrast the algorithmic metaphor for the universe with the clockwork one. even in newtons time, the idea was that the universe ran **like** a clock. it was a metaphor. but the zuse-fredkin-wolfram idea of the universe is that the universe evolves not merely **as** a computation, but that it **is** a computation. therefore, imho the algorithmic metaphor is actually more than a metaphor, more than the clockwork model was a metaphor. its not merely a paradigm shift I would say, its something more. its a new model, a new system, a new framework. its comparable to newtons discovery of the law of gravitation if the program can be successfully carried out. is the algorithmic idea incorrect? someday we will probably notice that it has its deficiencies just as the clockwork idea did, but we will not discard it entirely, just as we have not discarded the clockwork universe idea. so imho to say the clockwork metaphor for reality is "wrong", is (uh) wrong. imho its a simplistic/facile rejection of a still-legitimate paradigm.
